


Delicate

by thenukacolagirl



Category: Choices - Fandom, Open Heart (Visual Novel), Pixleberry, PlayChoices
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Breathplay, Cannibalism, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Femdom, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Light BDSM, Murder, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Serial Killers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2020-11-08 06:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenukacolagirl/pseuds/thenukacolagirl
Summary: Bianca reminded herself that some people in this world, well…They just deserved to die, no matter the reason.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I am aware of the nature of serial killers and what they do. No this is not meant to romancize them in anyway shape or form. I wrote what I wrote and you clicked on it so here we are.
> 
> (lets just pretend here law enforcement is kind of stupid and dumb so I can have more fun writing this)

It’s half past two in the morning when the phone rings. It’s whimsical tone echoed in the large home, amplifying the ringtone even more. The phone always seemed to ring at the most inconvenient time for Bianca. It was rather bothersome to say the least. Bianca sighed heavily, the weight of picking up or letting it ring weighed heavy on her shoulders. The blood on her hands is slick and dripping onto the floor, the knife she’d been using was clutched by her iron grip. Managing this freak accident seemed more important than what was probably a drunken phone call.

“Alexa, who’s calling?” She asked in a simple tone.

“Your caller ID is showing Sienna as your incoming call. Would you like to”

“Alexa send Sienna to voicemail and play for me Requiem, K. 626: Lacrimosa Dies Illa. Volume setting, 15% please.” The silence that followed was deafening. The only sound to Bianca was the thumm of her steady beating heart. It was a strange creature comfort to her, but one she rather enjoyed in her own sadistic manner. The thumm of her own hearted washed away when the chilling melody began playing. It soothed over her irritation and allowed for her to focus on prepping the last of the food. Thank god the vegetables had been cut before hand, no one was going to want to eat lettuce saturated in blood.

The music flowed with her cutting motions. The clean  _ click, click, click _ of the knife against the cutting board paired well with the violins that played. She found herself in a blissful hum… until the  _ noise _ started. It wasn’t bothersome at first, but as it grew more apparent, so did Bianca’s frustration. First the phone call, now this. She always hated when the  _ noise _ started acting up. 

She made a tsking sound with her tongue. “I thought I made quite clear you’re not suppose to cut into my ‘me time’. You were doing so well, too.” A frown painted itself across her pretty pink lips. “What a shame.” She is only met by muffled sounds and a series of heavy thuds. An exasperated sigh left her as she took her rag and cleaned off the sharpened blade, studying her reflection in it as if it were her own personal mirror. “I guess this is what I get for keeping my pray alive. Shocked you didn’t bleed to death like the pig you are.”Bianca whipped her head around, peering across her dim lit kitchen and the source of her frustration. The blood is trailed along her newly installed flooring and splattered along the wall. Flecks of it even on an old family photo. Her bare feet make tiny  _ pat pat pat _ sounds as the cool blood could be felt between her toes.

If someone walked in on her now, there would be no way to come up with an elaborate alibi. On the floor, surrounded by a deep pool of red, was a man in a finely made suit with hair that is starting to grey, with his entire forearm missing. Bianca had seen him around numerous times before,especially at his therapy sessions with his wife. It wasn’t hard to see past the turmoil in the marriage, no amount of makeup would cover up his wife’s brutal bruises. Bianca reminded herself that some people in this world, well…

They just deserved to die, no matter the reason. 

Bianca lowered herself to his level, the blade of the knife tipping his chin up to look at her. Her skin prickles with arousal seeing the fear in his dying eyes. She was rather shocked he managed to stay alive for this long. She supposed fear had a funny effect on people, not that she’d ever be able to know what that felt like. “Well now Luther, if I didn’t know better I’d say you’re scared, aren't you?” A tinker of a laugh left her. “Tell me, how does that make you feel?” The condescendingness is apparent in her tone. The many laborious nights she spent talking to his wife, listening to her stories on how his hands intentionally hurt her, such a purehearted individual like her didn’t deserve such pain. Not from a monster like him. Her answer was muffled screams and him using what little strength he had left to thrash about, blood being flicked onto her perfect pale cheek. How irritating.

Bianca smeared it across her cheek in an attempt to get it off. He’s shackled by his feet and his other remaining arm cuffed to the steel kitchen table, She felt he was rather foolish to think he could easily get away. She clasped a beautifully danity hand around his cheeks and forced him to look at her. The metal of the knife drawn delicalty across his cheek. “This is the fear you wife has about you, Luther. And your children, too. I, on the other hand, don’t fear you. Monsters like you don’t scare me. Nothing really does.” She slid her hand from his face to his neck, her hand tightening around it. A soft but pleasurable moan and hum left her as the feeling of euphoria started to wash over her. His body trembled under her grasp. “Now now. Just close your eyes, Luther and count to ten just like we do in therapy. I’ll even start off for you; ready, one… two… three…” 

_________

It’s now four in the morning by the time Bianca is able to put herself to bed. The silk sheets cool her near naked body as she wraps herself in them. The high of earlier is dying out, and with it brings a sense of sleep. Her hair looked like oil sprawled out against the white pillows as she laid contently in place. Her fingers drum across her phone and still see the voicemail Sienna had left. With a tap of her finger, Sienna’s voicemail fills the silence of her room.

_ “Uhhh hi? Bianca? Haha yeah it’s me! I swear I’m not drunk… well okay maybe a little wittle bit but I swear I’m fine! Hey so ya know how you’re like, super single right? I mean totally super duper single? Well there's like, this totally cute new doctor that uhh… ummm… Transferred! Yeah that's the word! He transferred here a few weeks ago and, whoopsie me! I maybe totally just didn’t invite him to brunch with us tomorrow and I did NOT mention over and over how single you are to him. Shhh, our little--shut up Jackie I am soo not drunk right now--itsa our little wittle secret okay? Okay, love you see at brunch tomorrow! _

_ _ Bianca let out heated sigh and sat right up in bed, blurry eyed and seething with anger. She, very deep down, loved Sienna tremendously. But god dammit did Bianca wish Sienna didn’t stick her nose and her whole self in a place where it didn’t belong. She didn’t need anyone, and most definitely not a man. Relationships and her ran a toxic course, one she’d rather forget about. The anger came to a simmer as Bianca sighed, threw her phone at the end of the bed and laid back down. Her mind racing with a million thoughts but one stuck out the most, one that would make this nightmare brunch her saving grace: being able to hopefully kill and eat the man eventually, because Luther’s body would last only so long.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now you, you have to tell me who you, I’ve gathered there's more to you than being some single friend of Sienna’s.”

Sunday morning brunch with Sienna and Elijah are one of the few “traditional” pleasures Bianca has in life. It’s always at this quaint cafe in the historical area of Boston, just down the road from the Old State House. It’s brick building that flourished the most beautiful ivy and roses she’d ever seen. Seated perfectly outside, Bianca absentmindedly drummed her fingers along the table watching everyone pass along. The hurried waitress, the older couple seated in the table just straight across from her sharing a coffee cake between the two of them. In the commonplace, she never failed to realize how out of place and touch she was with everything. Not that she cared much for the opinions of others, though. She made a living, the same as everyone else. How she did it was… well, that was her business. Morals and ethics was a humorous afterthought.

Even before Sienna or Elijah can get here, she’s already drank two cups of coffee and waiting on her third. Undoubtedly, Sienna was nursing her hangover and Elijah was sitting in ugly Boston traffic. She replayed the voicemail from last night, grimacing at Sienna’s high pitched drunk voice but the dread came over this new friend joining them. All Bianca knew of this man was he a doctor and he knew Sienna. She’d be sure to speak to Sienna on trying to play matchmaker, as she always does, but for now Bianca had to worry about this new man disrupting the peace of their brunch. 

Her phone rings once, glancing at the screen to see Elijah’s number and answers it quickly. “You care to explain where you’re at?”

“Jeez Bianca, sounds like you haven’t gotten your daily six cups of coffee yet.” Elijah voice is drowned out over the other end by the sounds of honking cars and hums of delivery trucks. “Sienna is with me but I’m letting you know we’ll be late. Traffic is killing us and Sienna took too long to get over to my place.” The muffled sound of Sienna defending herself brings a quick smile to Bianca’s lips before fading. Course, she was right to guess it was the traffic that was keeping them.

“How late are we talking. I’m already three cups of coffee down and sitting here looking pretty for nothing."

A horn blares from the other end. “Uhhh, at least thirty minutes or so. Maybe forty-five. But don’t worry! Ethan already called Sienna and said he was going to be there soon.”

_ Ah, that's his name, Ethan _ .

Bianca pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “I’ll give him another five minutes. He better be here.”

Elijah laughs. It's good humor and light hearted. “Oh trust me, Ethan is pretty punctual man. You tend to know a man after working with him for two weeks straight. We’ll see you soon,” the roar of an engine cuts him off, “hopefully.” The other end falls silent and Bianca throws her phone down. Now it became a waiting game if ‘Ethan’ would be here soon or not. Bianca wasn’t the one to wait. She only waited if the payoff was good enough; and the promise of this mysterious doctor wasn’t that interesting to her. Not unless this man had some dirt on him she could use and kill him over, literally. 

She’s not even sure how much time passes until she’s disrupted again by her phone. It’s a number she doesn’t even know, though for someone like her, there’s a lot of numbers she never saves. It’s better that way, for everyone. People knew not to disturb her on Sunday’s, the only ones she made exceptions for was those she considered friends and her own brothers.Still, against her own code, she answered it with much disdain. She'd hate to pass up an important business call. “Whoever this is, you better have a damn good reason to be calling me.”

The voice on the other end comes through. It’s smooth and low, a voice that makes goosebumps crawl up her arm. “Is this Bianca Hemgrove? Or Dr. Bianca Hemgrove?”

Bianca rolled her eyes, sighing heavily. “Look I don’t take phone calls on Sunday’s. It clearly says this on the business cards.”

“I’m not calling about an appointment, I’m calling because a girl named Sienna gave me your number. I’m Ethan, I’m supposed to meet for brunch but I can’t find this damned place. I’m pretty I’ve passed by the same tree three times now.” His voice was tight, on the verge of holding back his frustration and hurt pride.

The idiocy of the situation made Bianca laugh, genuinely laugh. Many mundane things didn’t bring her joy yet for some reason this hopelessly lost and helpless doctor did. “Tell me where you’re at. I’ll just meet you and show you the way.” It rolled off her tongue so easily. It  _ was _ too easy to get people to do what she wanted, or maybe she was just that good. All that was missing was a few close “business” associates and a bottle of wine.

Ethan is silent for a while before speaking. “Guess I have to swallow my pride. Fine. I’m by the Old State House off of-”

“Just stop talking. Stay put and look for a woman in a leopard print cardigan. It won’t be hard to miss.” She promptly ended the phone call and threw down a couple of bucks for her server and departed for the State House. How a man like him could get lost, Bianca didn't understand. He’s a doctor, she figured he’d have some common sense. It wasn’t even that far of a walk, to her at least. She crossed a few bustling crosswalks and pushed past the leisurely walkers or catty women talking too loudly on their phones. Bianca liked to ponder the idea that all these people crossed paths with someone like her; someone most everyone pictured rotting on death row. There where those who idolized her and there were those who feared her.

And Bianca didn’t know which one she liked better.

The Old State House came into view not too long after rounding the corner. It’s a beautiful brick exterior not matching the sleek modern city surrounding it. There’s an influx of tourists here, Boston always attracted them around this time of year. The fall was the city's busiest time of year, an unfortunate downside to living here and the surrounding neighborhoods. She’d hope to see this Ethan guy, whatever he looked like. He lacked common sense, sure, but Bianca hoped he didn’t lack it  _ that much _ and not be able to spot her like he said he could. A group of chatty tourist break apart and standing by the main front door to the building was a man with a deep scowl on his face and clutching a phone tightly. She studies him from afar for a moment, like he’s her prey. From a distance, she takes in his rather tall stature and brooding face. Under his brooding attitude, she can see he’s hopelessly lost and confused. 

In another situation- or maybe if Bianca just felt like it- she would kill him. 

Straightening herself out, she strides over to him and comes into his line of sight. Closing in on him, she can see more details of his face and body. First taking in how blue eyes are, god she’d never seen eyes that blue before they were almost memorising the longer she stared at them. His sharp jawline covered with thick stubble gave him a rather rugged appearance that she found appealing. Even enough to bring some heat to her cheeks.

_ I already fucking hate him _ .

“You Ethan? Damn, I heard you were a doctor. How the hell you manage to get yourself lost?” Bianca teases him, enjoying herself as he scowls at her and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“You know, if you weren’t my unfortunate saving grace in this situation, I would have told you to piss off.” Ethan adjusted his jacket and looked her over up and down. Somehow she rather savored the attention those roaming eyes gave her. “You weren’t kidding about the cardigan. I’m shocked someone is able to pull it off.” A smirk came over his face, god Bianca really did want to kill him. What a smartass.

Bianca made a gesture in his direction. “Well, Ethan, I came here to save your sorry ass, not get fashion advice from a man who’s dressed like a middle-aged accountant. Now walk and talk with me. You’re cutting into me getting another cup of coffee.” With that, she promptly spun on her heels and begun her walk back, expecting him to lag behind though Ethan joined her at her side seconds later. He could match her pace with her with such grace and ease. 

“I get the feeling you don’t like me,” Ethan casually mentions, “which I’m not surprised. Many people don’t.”

“Really? I’m shocked. What turns them away? Your smartass remarks or your scowling demanor?” Bianca can’t help but smirk and laugh at herself.

From the corner of her eye she caught Ethan smiling at her, holding back his own laugh. “It’s both.”

They walk another block before Ethan spoke to her again. A shame, really, Bianca rather enjoyed the silence with him and the fact he didn’t talk much. “Shouldn’t we get to know each other a little? If we’re going to have to sit through this brunch- which by the way I was forced invited to- we might as well know some basic information about each other, as much as I hate talking to people.”Bianca let them round the corner and the cafe came into view. Still no sign of Sienna or Elijah. Shit, she was stuck with this guy until they got here. Bianca considered what she told new people very carefully, because if she told them anything wrong she’d just have to kill them. Becoming friends with Sienna was easy because she was  _ too _ kind hearted and naive to think less of people; and that gave Bianca an edge with Sienna’s other friends. If Sienna thought of her as a good person-which she was- than everyone else would believe her too. 

“You first. What’s your last name and how do you know Sienna and Elijah?”It’s much less of a question and more of a demand from her. 

A few quick paces pass them as Ethan fought a war with himself on whether or not to answer her question. “Last name is personal, but it’s Ramsey. And I know Sienna and Elijah from work. I was down in Miami working with another diagnostic team when I was told my old mentor could use my help again running his diagnostic team. So I transferred back up here to Boston and to Edenbrook, my old stomping grounds. Suffice to say, I’ve missed the old place and getting to yell at iterns all day.” He straightened out his shoulders. “Now you, you have to tell me who you, I’ve gathered there's more to you than being some single friend of Sienna’s.”

Bianca elbowed him lightly, a laugh passing between the two of them before Bianca thought about what she’d say. The words left her lips in a smooth eloquent manner. Some of her old Goegrian accent slipping through in some places. Almost everything she says she knows like the back of her hand. “You already know my name. But I’m a therapist here in Boston. I run my own office but Edenbrook calls on me to deal with their more… emotional patients. Typically people who have just gotten told they’re dying, or kids who don’t understand why someone they love is gone. On rare occasions, I work with patients who are nearing the end of their life and need some solace before the die. Oh, look, we’re here.” It’s easy to get another table, only this time inside. It smells heavily of cinnamon and pumpkin pie filling in here. It’s done up for fall, plastic pumpkins on every table and streams of fake leaves with equally fake cobwebs coating them hanging tacked up on the walls. Ethan and her sat across from each other in this rather small booth. In such close proximity, she can smell the divine scent of cologne. It’s musky and made primarily with teakwood. A smell Bianca was rather fond of. 

Ethan sat back, admiring her as those intense blues studied her. “So that's it?”

Bianca cocked an eyebrow. “Am I obliged to tell you more?”

The faintest smirk pulls at his lips. “No. I supposed not, but I feel like you’re someone I could come and bitch to interns about.”

She leaned forward. Matching his intense stare. “Trust me, Ethan, you don’t want to know a girl like me.” The waitress broke her line of sight from him for a slip moment as she set down their coffee. She watched as Ethan took his mug into the palm of his hands and held it there. Savoring the warmth before he took a sip, breaking eye contact with her. 

Ethan finished his drawn out sip of coffee and set the mug down. Leaning in closer to her now, their face’s inches apart. She can study every minor detail on his face. Under the soft yellow light she can see the way his pupils dilate. “I’ll take that as a personal challenge.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lets bust some kneecaps !!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to lily cause its what she deserves 😌

Sienna and Elijah are over an hour late brunch that they miss out on the brunch menu, but nonetheless the lunch menu is just as good as is the company. She still hates Ethan, she wants to hate him, but damn did he make it hard. His sarcastic nature and stupidly handsome face. 

_ Disgusting, I want him dead. _

_ _ Bianca is on her second glass of water when Elijah brings up the typical hospital drama. “Did you hear about Landry the other day? Totally made another patient cry! Again!” Elijah shook his head as he took a massive bite from his burger. “I love the man but c’mon.”

Ethan passes him a napkin, displeasure on his face. “Rude to talk with your mouth full, Dr. Greene.” Bianca bit her inner lip to starve off laughing, she hates herself for finding Ethan’s behavior humorous. Though her interest lies in Landry and what’s going on. She has met him, briefly, but never vibed with him well. Something about him unsettled her. She won’t murder him without a reason. 

But that all hangs on whatever Elijah says about him.

Sienna giggles and reaches across for her iced tea before going serious. A harsh scowl plasters itself on her face. “I love Landry but you’re right. I’ve been hearing so much lately he’s been treating patients like machines and less like people. He can’t just do that! They’re people with emotions and are in a super delicate situation! You agree don’t you Bianca?”

Bianca shrugs. People shouldn’t ask her for her opinions on others, or how she feels towards them. People’s feelings came second in her mind unless it’s children. She’d always cares about them. Despite her inner feelings, Bianca finds it easy to pretend she cares. “I do. But what is it that he’s doing to make them upset? Who’s he been working with?”

Much to her surprise, it’s Ethan who answers her question. “I assigned Dr. Olsen to work with some younger patients, kids. I find my interns should be capable to work with every age group. I  _ thought _ he’d be able to do it considering he’s more or less the messenger between the child and the pediatric doctor but my judgement was misplaced, unfortunately.” Bianca sees the flicker of anger in his eyes and notices the extra force when he slams down his coffee mug. He’s not doing a very good job in covering up his anger, not like her. Under her calm outside, rage is igniting like a fire, every word she hears about him only fueling it. 

Bianca meets everyone’s eyes, though she fixates on Ethan’s the most. “What’s he doing to them?” Her voice is tight, almost too tight, and cold. She wants answers, dammit, and she’s getting them. She untenses her body and clears her throat, understanding none of them would talk if they see her being too intense. “Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m only asking since I work closely with the kids there.”

Elijah wheels back and forth, taking her bait as he thinks it over. “Well, he’s been coming home and telling me the kids cry and get scared when he directly tells them what’s going to happen. He told one little girl she was going to need heart surgery and explained some rather gritty details. Which, to quote him, “The important details so she knew what to expect.” And the poor kid cried the rest of the day about it. He didn’t seem very bothered by scaring her.”

Bianca grips her skirt tightly. The anger in her came to a boil and will spill over soon Her manicured nails dig into flesh so deeply that the pain from it all feels exhilarating. It’s rather sadistic how pleasurable she finds pain to be, to herself or others. She eyes Ethan for a split moment and ponders how nice it would be to slide her dainty hand around his neck and choke him out. She admires his own hands, large and calloused in places, yet they’re strong and stredy. Heat rises to her cheeks as dirty thoughts that revolve around him plague her mind.

_ Stop it, stop liking him. You don’t care about people, not like that. He’s only going to hurt you too. _

Bianca slides from the booth they occupy and clutches her phone in hand. The gears turn in her head, thoughts of what to do and how to do it. “I need to go make a call,” she tells them simply, she’s struggling to keep her composure in front of them. At times like this, she wants to murder someone in order to calm herself down. 

“But you don’t take calls on Sunday’s remember? Not unless it’s super important.” Sienna questions, a puzzled look on her face. “Who are you going to call?”

“Zachary and Jonathan. Don’t worry Sienna everything is fine, I promise.” Bianca forces herself to smile, to show Sienna nothing was amiss and the other buys it. 

Ethan; however, doesn’t. “You have brothers? Is something the matter with them? Or with  _ you _ for that matter?” He was smarter than Bianca gave him credit for. Had he seen the anger she’s trying to conceal? Notices how red her face is from the exotic thoughts she had only a moment ago? 

Bianca smooths out her skirt, her pleasant smile turns into more of a seductive smirk aimed at Ethan. “It’s just… well, we've got a small family business, Ramsey. But cute of you to care about me.” She loves watching Ethan be taken aback and catch him trying to hide the blush that came to his cheeks. “Now please, don’t wait up for me. It was lovely having brunch with you all.” She throws down some cash for her meal.

“Well, if you’re leaving Dr. Hemgrove…” Ethan trails off and admires his coffee mug, looking anywhere but her before turning to her, “it was a very odd pleasure in meeting you. May I hope we don’t meet again.”

Sienna snorts behind her hand as Bianca rolls her eyes at him. “Try not to get lost again, Ramsey, would hate having to save you again. You see me around,” she pauses, considering her words carefully, “don’t try and talk to me or get to know me.” She means it, in all seriousness. If she wants to get rid of whatever these damn feelings are for him, she has to just distance herself from him. While the others laugh, she takes her leave and steps outside of the cafe and makes her way to her car. She swiftly unlocks her phone and finds Jonathan’s number first and promptly calls it. 

It rings once, twice, finally on the third ring the groggy voice of her brothers comes through. “Mmmm, this better be good, Bianca, you’re interrupting my vacation.” 

“You mean your fuck fest of a weekend? Lemme guess you banged your boyfriend all last night? Sure, sounds like a vacation alright,” Biaanca quips at him as she bustles past people and weaves out of the way of delivery workers. Over the end, her brother strings together some not so pleasant words in Dutch. To this day, speaking the language was perhaps all she had left of her mother and feeling close to her. At times, Bianca missed speaking to her mother in Dutch while she watched Saturday morning cartoons. Those are the better days, the better memories. Quite possibly, the only thing that tethers her to humanity at all still are the memories of her mother.

_ Mom would hate you now. She’d hate what you become. Same with Kimberly.  _

_ _ “Hey! Earth to fucking big sister, I keep asking what you want. Are you listening or am I speaking to the dead here?” Jonathan’s voice cuts through. Bianca shakes her head as she reaches her car to unlock it, pulling herself in and sitting back in her drivers seat.

“Right, sorry. Call Zachary for me. I need to speak to you both about something. Something  _ business _ related.” 

There is a long period of silence. Bianca isn’t sure if Jonathan hung up on her, or if just fell back asleep. She’s about to speak when the sound of their youngest brother breaks the silence. “Well, well, well. What do I owe this phone call to while I’m in the middle of working. You know I’m busy.”

“Zachary, it’s a Sunday. Take a break why don’t you?” Jonathan says, annoyance in his voice.

“Art waits for now one, dumbass. Just like how prison cells don’t wait for your clients.” Bianca pinches the bridge of her nose as she listens to her brothers argue as she starts the car and begins her drive home. Her house not far from here as it was in an affluent neighborhood of Boston. The traffic has lighten up, making the drive not so unbearable.

The argument becomes pointless after a while and Bianca promptly cuts them both off. “Shut up! Both of you! God you’re just like kids again, ugh. Only this time you’re arguing over one fucking their boyfriend and the other huffing paint fumes. I have something important to tell you.  _ Family business  _ level of importance.” The argument halts and the two mutter apologies and fall silent. 

“What is it? What's going on?” Zarchary asks in a grave, serious voice. Bianca had to admit, when he wasn’t being a total smartass, her baby brother was excellent at his job and listening.

“Do we need to come over?” Jonathan adds in shortly after. “Because I can tell my client that I’ll meet them-”

“No need. You two for now don’t need to do anything super important now but to pay attention, this  _ client _ of ours is a hassle.”

“You know, it helps us if you tell us who they are, Bee,” Zarchary teases her. Ah, there it was, being a smartass again.

“I’m going to ignore that and continue with what I was saying. Now pretty please shut the hell up and let me explain,” Biacna says in a short tone of voice. The explanation of what happened at the cafe is long enough that by the time she's done, she's pulling up to her driveway. Neighborhood has more cars out today, people are out walking their dogs on sidewalks lined with trees that are the perfect shades of orange and red in their leaves. Every house is different, some are made of brick, like Bianca's own houses, and others of only the highest quality siding. She finds it pathetic that the people on her street are more worried about the murders- that she doesn't even have a part of- that happen in downtown Boston than they are of the one who lives right on their very street. 

_ Idiots, all of them.  _

"What an asshole. The nerve of him," Jonathan groans, "who the hell does that?"

"This dude, apparently. Now as much I think this dude in the wrong, you still won't tell us who this is and why you need us?" Zachary chimes in. Bianca shuts off her car and breathes out a long sigh.

"I need you, Zachary to secure a buyer and for you Jonathan to whip up- ah- some important  _ paperwork _ between the client and the buyer. You know the kind I want and what I want delivered."

"Anything for you my darling big sister," Zachary jokes with her, a musical tone to his voice.

"And I can have the paperwork done soon. What's the client's name?" Jonathan asks, a certain eagerness to his voice. 

Bianca's lip twitches every so slightly with the hint of a smirk wanting to come through as she climbs out of the car and slams the door shut. Her eyes fixated on her house. "Landry Olsen. It's going to be a pleasure doing business with him." Bianca ends the call on her brother's, shoving her phone back into her pocket, satisfied that her brothers were efficient with their jobs

Now it was just a matter of how she was going to kill him and when.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love a good unhinged woman trope 😌
> 
> (this chapter is dedicated to two people: firstly the birthday girl Perrie who i hope has a fantastic birthday today and also to lily, congrats on the new addition to the family ❤)
> 
> also i did not proofread any of this so rip to this chapter

Bianca and Ethan play this cat and mouse game for two weeks until Bianca can’t take it anymore. She isn’t sure why they play it for so long, but they do. She found it, at first, to be sheer coincidence. He was working on cases with lots of children, given that the fall season hit hard and the flu epidemic was spiraling. The left her working shifts mostly out of her office and at the hospital, speaking to the rare cases of children whose flu had them hospitalized over the normal quick visit. The only pleasurable thing about this game was the dirt she gets on Landry. Kids are sponges and Landry was a fucking idiot who didn’t watch his mouth, many of them ratting him out without even knowing it.

“He tells me they’re gonna poke me with big, big, needles! Doctors go jab-jab in my arm and he says it hurts!” That had been the last straw for Bianca, that conversation with a poor six year old girl who’s flu turned into pneumonia. It had been quite an entertaining show when she watched Ethan rip Landry a new one after reporting it. 

Still, Landry deserved to die, there was no more room to debate it.

But now, at two weeks, her little show with Landry was growing tiresome as she’s exhausted all her efforts in watching him. She knows where he sat at lunch, what he ate, what time he clocked out and clocked in, where he parked his car if he drove or where he walked from if he took the train. It’s simple observations and using his friends to her advantage to gather it all. Now all that remains is this bizarre game with Ethan and she wants out of it. 

Sitting in the coffee shop down the road from work, Bianca thumbed through her book, her earbuds in and enjoying not speaking to anyone as her venti size coffee cooled down. Though her eyes scanned the page, her mind was elsewhere thinking of him. They’d been running into each other more, working with some of the same children at times. He’d go to her asking if she could give some emotional support to children who were going in for surgery or be in the room when they go in for scans. She actively tries to avoid him, yet at the end of the day seeks him out to speak to him and decompress from the day rather than going home and drink. Other days, they barely so much as look at each other or say two words when forced into the same room. Bianca has had the pleasure of having her own office away from the hospital, perhaps her only saving grace.

_ Maybe I’ll murder him too. But I see the way he interacts with the kids, they love him as much as he loves them. God no! Stop that! You’re starting to care for him, Bianca. Stop caring about a man who’s only going to hurt you. _

Sighing, she flips another page in her book as she glanced up briefly. The coffee shop is busier than normal, the influx of college students and common folk taking refuge from increasing amount of rain Boston had been seeing. The front door of the shop swings open, grabbing her attention and watching who came in. Her stomach dropping and anger heating her cheeks.

It’s Ethan. Ethan  _ fucking  _ Ramsey, coming in dripping wet from the rain. She rolls her eyes, burying herself into her book trying to ignore him. This man infuriated her to no end, everything about him  _ was _ infuriating. His cocky attitude, his passing smirks, his closed off emotional demeanor that reminders almost too much of herself. It didn’t pair well with that she’s itching to murder Landry in cold blood and irrtated by the fact that she was still stuck with Luther’s bitchy wife who cried to her over her husband having gone “missing” and “running away with some other woman” now. God everything is getting to her and sets her teeth on edge.

She needs to murder someone, and now. 

She can murder Ethan, it be effortless to do so; and yet, she can’t. She just can’t bring herself to do it let alone think of going through with it.

A sharp cough cuts her thoughts and Bianca forces herself to look up. Ethan is standing at her table, coffee in hand. “You deaf?” He teases her.

Bianca pulls out an earbud, the music having stopped long ago. “And are you demanding?” she shot back at him.

“Ouch, I’m hurt, Dr Hemgrove…” Ethan pauses, eyeing her over in a way that makes her heart twist, “may I sit here? It’s full everywhere else.”

Bianca gestures lazily to her free chair, closing her book and shoves the earbuds back into her pocket as Ethan pulls up across from her. She grabs her own coffee cup and holds it in her hands, letting its warmth draw away from her bubbling anger. They don’t speak, theres no reason to speak. She has nothing to say to him because she knows what she wants to say to him: what the hell was his deal with her at the hospital? She caught on the game they played, she ponders if he did too. This coffee shop was her other get away from him and now he was here too. This had to not be a mere coincidence.

“Why are you here?” She asks him, sipping her drink.

Ethan cocks an eyebrow. “I frequent this place often. Only place to get away from the hospital. I don’t have the luxury like you do and having an office that’s elsewhere. Upper management up my ass and annoying interns bothering me.”

“You seriously hate these interns, I hear you don’t bother to learn their names.”

“It builds character… that and makes them know I don’t care about any of them. Can’t get attached if you don’t give it a name right?”He gives a humor filled laugh, a pleasant smile comes across his face.His laugh is warm and inviting, it makes her cheeks flush a deeper red. “I’m joking, in case I’m not clear enough. Though I do try and push them to be better.”

He makes it so hard to hate him. It’s sickening really.

Bianca tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as she smiles a bit. Not a forced smile, not a tight lipped “I will literally murder you later” smile. It’s an actual, genuine smile that makes her cheeks hurt. “Still doesn’t stop them from hanging off of you and flirting with you, though.”

It’s Ethan’s turn to be flustered. He chokes up on his drink, spilling some coffee down his chin as he hastily tries to wipe it up as he nervously laughs, a tinge of pink crawls up his neck. “I beg your pardon Dr. Hemgrove?”

Bianca laughs, its fluttering and like tinkling bells. “Boy you really are stupid. Have you not noticed? Batting their pretty eyes at you, chatting about you in the lunchroom when you leave and enter it. The giggling in hallways behind their hands. It’s quite a show, really. It is amusing when they openly flirt with you.” She leans forward in her seat, enjoying watching Ethan get flustered again like had done at brunch. From under the table, their knees brush against one another and a pleasurable feeling runs up her spine. She bites her inner lip, jerking her leg away.

Ethan clears his throat as he folds his hands in front of him, setting them on the table. They’re mere inches from her own and lightly brush against her skin. She can’t tell if it’s intentional or not. “Dr. Hemgrove, I assure you I have no intentions of dating or flirting with any of these interns.”

“Try telling them that. You’re a real catch Dr. Ramsey, or so the interns say.”

Ethan snorts at her remark yet says nothing, allowing them to sit in comfortable silence as the pitter-patter of raindrops hit the window. Bianca finds herself settling into this silence and overcome with a strange sensation she can’t explain. Everything around her but the gentle sound of rain and Ethan himself fade away, like nothing else exists in the moment. Her body relaxing into contentedness around Ethan as she absentmindedly grazes his fingertips that are still settled on the table, his skin warm from the coffee cup. His dark hair catches in the soft lighting of the shop and the cool colors from outside cast a shadow over his face that makes it look more handsome, he smells faintly of cinnamon too. 

_ I could kiss you right now, god I wish I could _ .

The thought snaps her back to a jarring reality. That reality that she had  _ feelings _ for this man, this fucking person. Her and Ethan’s bonding time is unconventional as they hadn’t spent too much time together, seeing as how Bianca tries her damn best to avoid him and he avoids her. He makes her heart skip and palms feel sickly gross with sweat. This is what Sienna called a “crush”, much like the crush Sienna has on Danny. But in their short times she has grown to like him, like his company, like his face, his  _ body _ , just fucking like everything about him. And it made Bianca feel sick. Utterly and truly sick.

She stands up promptly and almost knocks over her chair as she collects her things. She has to leave and get away from him. She angrily shoves her book into her bag along side with her phone as her heartbeat gathers speed in her chest.

“You’re leaving so soon?” Ethan innocently asks her, tilting his head to the side. God does he not know what he’s doing to her? Bianca shoots him a look and for a split second, she is sure she wants to cry. She shakes her head and returns to her things. “Do you want to walk with me back to the”

“No! No, Ethan I’m going home. I-I’m sorry I just need to go.” Her voice trembles, it never trembles like this, ever. She slings her bag over her shoulder and makes haste for the door, just as she’s a few steps from the front door, Ethan is right beside her, giving her an inquisitive look of worry and unease as her stands under the awning of the shop. “Stop looking at me like that, I’m fine.”

“That’s such a load of bullshit, Hemgrove, and you know it. Don’t think I was born yesterday.”

Bianca swallows hard, her feet shuffling along the slick wet sidewalk as she’s too jittery to stay in one place for long. “Just please leave me alone, Ethan, I-I just need to leave. I’m fine but lea-leave me alone.”

She sees the way his body slightly jerks, as if wanting to go and help her but he remains put. His expression smoothing out as he knows he won’t change her mind. He cast a quick glance back inside before looking to her. “Alright. I won’t stop you. But… call me and tell me if you’re okay. Don’t text me, I hate texting it’s too personal.” In any other context, his comment would have made her laugh. Bianca doesn’t even say anything to him as she shakes her head and turns away from him, briskly walking further and further away and allowing the rain to drench her body to the point she can’t tell if the trembling is from her body’s reaction to her feelings or the cold.

All she knew was that she just has to go home and be as far away from him as possible.

…

At home, Bianca is no better, in fact, she’s worse. 

There is a bottle of wine that’s empty that sits on her countertop in her bathroom.She downed that one bottle before even getting into the shower and was working on the other currently as shes hunched over her sink, allowing wine that spilled from her mouth to drip into the sink. It’s bottle covered in blood from her cut up fingertips. She had carelessly dropped her wine glass on the floor and tried to pick it up, the shards cutting her hand and feet. She painted the floor with her own blood as she didn’t bother to even try and pull the glass from her feet and let herself freely bleed everywhere, her clothes left the floor soaking it up. 

The enclosed room is still filled with steam as the shower still ran, she couldn’t bother herself to turn it off. She didn’t feel  _ clean _ , nothing about her felt clean. She scrubbed at her body thrice over and nothing got rid of the feeling of utter disgust at herself. What was it going to take to get rid of it all? Washing herself didn’t work, lathering her skin and hair with the smells of jasmine and honey didn’t mask the smell of cinnamon that felt permanently embedded in her nose. God everything about Ethan found its way into her body and it drove her mad. She felt so dirty and unclean.

And angry. Absolutely enamored with a rage that could chill anyones bones. She was angry with herself that she could feel it down to the very pit of her stomach. She slams down the bottle with an unrelated force it makes a crack in counter. Bianca sharply inhales as she leans back, her head swimming in clouded thoughts of rage and wine. The silk robe she wore is stained by blood and droplets of wine. A shame, it’s her favorite one too and she’s ruined it. She just needs to stop feeling, stop  _ caring _ . She knows it's not Ethan who she is mad at, its herself. She is beyond stricken with a furious rage that she hasn't felt in years and it's all over a stupid man. She pushes herself away from the wall and aggressively reaches for mirror and swings it open, staring right at the contents of all the medication bottles and other miscellaneous items. She fumbles trying to reach for a bottle, knocking over a nice bottle of perfume and allows her mascara to roll out and to the floor as she clutches the bottle in hand and holds it up in the light. 

Her mind is taken back to the day she got this bottle. She remembers being a young girl, just having celebrated her 12th birthday. Her mom took her to meet a nice older woman at an office that had many windows and smelled faintly of sandalwood. The lady asked her lots of questions, many of them about her childhood and her emotions. Child Bianca was so honest with her answers, because mom had told her to be honest. It felt like nothing passed before she was told to go wait outside so the lady could talk to her mom; when she came back, Bianca swore she was a changed woman. But she kept going to that woman, year after year. Her mom always took her to the appointment and soon enough, her brothers tagged along to come with too; and they all eventually got put on medications by their mom and the therapist. She still remembered her mom's answer after asking why she was having to go and why her and her brothers had to keep taking medication. "You'll always be sick, mijn schatje. But that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that, no matter what anyone tells you. Slaat dat ergens op?" Bianca smiled and just like that, she kept on going and taking for seven years

And not once did it ever work. 

Because it wasn't  _ supposed  _ to work. It never works on people like her. It only made everything worse. The therapy, the medication, all of it was never supposed to work. And it took years of studying psychology and getting a goddamn degree in it to find that out. 

_ Mom was doing her best. She just wanted to help. Not her fault she trusted a shitty therapist who believed people like you can be fixed with pills and therapy.  _

She stopped refilling and going the year her mom and sister died. Ironically should have been the year she got even more help; because their deaths did the worst damage of all.

The old memories flutter away and Bianca is again clouded by the wine and even stronger force of anger. She slams the cabinet shut and throws the empty pill bottle to the ground. She swallows hard as tears threaten to spill over and streak her cheeks. She wipes the mirror with a trembling hand, smearing blood across it as it mixes with the water and fog that had gathered on it. She stares back at herself, those eyes of her dilated and watery. Fingers curl into the counter as she tries to tell herself not to cry and not feel, making herself more frustrated and bitter. 

"You're fine. You're absolutely fine! Don't feel, just don't fucking feel! You're not supposed to!" She screams at herself as she runs a bloody hand through her hair. She backs away from the mirror, pacing around her bathroom as alcohol starts to hit her more. Body trembling as the tears spill over, feet stinging from the pain of the glass being further embedded into her skin. She has gasp for air which makes her whole body ache. She buries the palms of her hands into her eyes, rubbing away the tears yet risking blood getting in them. She draws them away, staring at her trembling fingers just as as her phone that is perched on the end of the counter goes off, vibrating.

It all becomes too much at that point. 

Bianca isn't sure what came first: punching the mirror or the scream. Both equally hurt and both equally causing pain. The scream she swears echoes in her own bathroom and the mirror is broken into multiple pieces. She's controlling her breathing, having to stabilize herself against the counter as the vibration from her phone is felt under her palm. She glances over at her phone, seeing it's Ethan calling. Shit, how many hours had gone by? 

She takes the phone in her free hand and hits the call button, pressing it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Jesus christ, Hemgrove, you sound like shit. Are you alright?"

Bianca breathed out calmly as she took back her hand that was buried in her mirror. Watching the broken glass glisten in the light and new blood drip all over the floor. "Yeah… yeah so good. Just getting ready to shower." 

"You sound drunk," Ethan retorts, "are you sure you're alright?" 

Bianca can only laugh, its a bitter, drunken laugh. "It's so cute that you care. But no… no I'm not drunk, Ramsey. I'm just coming off some , uh powerful sleeping meds. Now why are you calling?"

Ethan is silent on the other end, there's chatter in the background she can hear and assumes he must be at work still. "Because I need another favor from you, unfortunately.”

“Another favor? What, you get lost again?” she muses with him, leaning back against the wall and sliding down to the floor, sitting in blood and glass.

“Ha, you’re so funny. I wish it was that simple, but no. Ines invited all the interns to her halloween party and me as well, and I don’t do parties.”

Bianca rolled her eyes and glances to her half empty bottle of wine. “I don’t see why this is my problem. Just don’t go.”

Ethan sighs from the other end, sounding exasperated. “Okay look I’ll cut to the chase. I’m only going since Ines promised me a nice thing of whisky and I… I would appreciate having someone to talk to at the party. So, with what dignity I have left, I’m asking if you’ll come with me, Bianca. Please.”

Bianca toys with her answer. “Sure. I’ll come. On the condition you wear a costume and pick me up at 6:30 the night of the party. Oh, and I want wine, red. You can give me your answer tomorrow at my office, Ethan.” She hangs up on him and tosses her phone to the side, thankful the conversation is over as she picks herself up and stares in a daze at her broken reflection in the mirror. A sadistic smile spreading across her face and a cold laugh escaping her lips. Ethan mentioned the interns were invited, and only one intern mattered: Landry. And Bianca was going to fucking murder him at Ines’s party. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it!! Speical dedication to Autumn Leaves and Lily !! 
> 
> (Heads up a very graphic chapter, involves murder and gore and totally not proofread)

"You're fucking crazy, and made even a fool if you think you can get away with it at a party! So what the hell was all that paperwork I sent you for?! Collecting dust?"

"Ugh stop yelling. And I needed it so I knew just about everything on him. Blood, doctor and birth records, the finer details that are so hard to come by. Now be a dear and pass me my water." 

Jonathan throws a groan in her direction and lazily tosses the water bottle to her. Bianca doing her best to nurse her killer hangover. She went to work with it too and had to carry a full out conversation with Ethan while being grossly hungover. If he noticed, he hadn't said anything and maybe for the best. She aches all over, body scuffed up from that breakdown in the bathroom and internally in pain from drinking and vomiting. 

"Such a good little brother," she teases him, stretching out on her couch, "but are we really going to keep talking about me?"

Jonathan sighs, settling on the chair across from her. He's dressed in one of his nice lawyer suits, the whole nine yards. Even his most of the time untamed black hair is slicked back and styled. "Look Bee, I just think its risky is all. How are you supposed to get away with this? We can't afford for you to be gone. Zachary and I do logistics and whatnot, but you're the one who runs the show," he pauses and runs a hand across his scruffy face, "the family business can't run without you." 

Bianca smiles sadly to her brother. They may all be grown up and off doing their own things, but at the end of the day they'd do anything for each other; however, not in the way most siblings typically do. At least, not what society expects them to do. She sits up a little and groans at the sudden light headed feeling before sipping her water.

"I know Jonathan but just hear me out. You said Zachary has someone who can buy, right?" 

He nods. "Yeah. Some girl who calls herself Priya Lacroix. Zachary says they've worked together on shows, she's an upscale designer in New York…" his voice trails off. "But she's a bit peculiar."

"So you've met?"

"Brief. She tried to hit on me. She was disappointed that I "played for the other team". Said to call her if I ever changed my mind but told her I was pretty deadset into fucking and seeing dudes. Not to mention, I have Hudson waiting at home for me." He shakes his head, waving off his own comment as he leans forward. “But that’s beside the point. What is it you need from us?”

Bianca sat up fully and takes a swig of water to starve off the growing headache. She glances around her house before she beckons for him to follow her outside and to her back porch that overlooks her backyard that teems with dying plants and trees, their leaves covering almost every inch of the yard as fall had made itself quite known here. The cool air clearing her head for a moment.

“I got Ines’s address from her today at work, I trust you enough that you can get to her house. She lives in a sleepy little neighborhood with mostly old people from what she told me.”

“I don’t see how this helps.”

“Will you shut the fuck up for two seconds and let me finish?”

Jonathan shrugs. “No, but you keep talking anyway. It’s what you’re good at.”

“Rot op!” Bianca shot back at him and shoves him harshly, a barking laugh coming from her brother as she seers at him and gives him her middle finger. “It helps because no one is going to bother me, bother us. It makes it easier when you…” she racks her brain trying to think of the words in English before shaking her head. "Just weg met die klootzak, broer, begrijpen? I want him gone and taken care of in under a minute flat.”

Jonathan nods. “Ja. But how you want it done? How are  _ you  _ going to get it done?”

Bianca sips her water again and scans out into her backyard. “Can’t poison the fucker. As much as I think he should suffer, it be too messy.”

“Still doesn’t answer my question.”

Bianca turns on her brother. A sickening sweet smile across her face. “Don’t worry about it. Just be at the woods behind her house, got it? Let your big sister worry about how he’s gonna die and you can worry about keeping me out of prison.”

Jonathan rubs the back of his neck as he glances to her and sighed, turning to look out to the world. “Don’t bring that up. I try damn hard to make sure you’re not thrown in a cell. I’ve been keeping you out of prison since we were sixteen. All cause of a boy."

"Not a boy, a monster. Matthew got what was coming to him. He hurt you. Hell Jonathan he was going out you to the whole church if I didn't do something, and Atticus was going to throw you in the streets if I didn't intervene." 

"You murdered the preacher's son! You literally nailed him to a cross to bleed out and die like a pig for slaughter. Not to mention, you set fire to the church the night before his service."

Bianca merely shrugs. "What can I say, no one expected the sweet little southern belle to do it. I think you should be thanking me, murdering the preacher's son is what started our little family business. I make more money selling to the black market and running this business than I do telling Janice she needs to stop adopting so many damn cats and get back on her meds." 

Jonathan stiffly laughs as he gestures for her to follow back inside, being greeted by the warmth of her house once more. "I don't doubt you. Though its easy to say as one of the best lawyers in Boston. Not to brag or anything."

Bianca rolls her eyes and pushes on him playfully as she walks to the kitchen. "Next you'll be bragging about your engagement," she pauses, "hungry? I have leftovers in the fridge I need to eat."

He pulls himself up to her breakfast bar, hands playing about with a stray coaster. "Sure. Why not. Beats me eating lunch with my shitty coworkers."

"So just Vanessa, then, considering you like everyone else. Whats her last name again you know I could"

"No! Bianca I get you're my big sister and all but there's no need. Besides, she's fucking off back to Goldcliffe over in California I think, its where she went to school before trying to make it out here. Claims Boston isn't what she's looking for, the clientele isn't what she wants."

Bianca snorts as she takes out the leftovers and preps the food. "You mean she wants clients who aren't poor. The people here are just charity cases to her.”

Sollumly he nods to her as Bianca rolls her eyes, getting out two bowels and sliding the food into it, tossing around the meat and leafy greens as she breathes out through her nose in order to maintain a chill composer. Her brother is the one to change the subject as he casually gets up and goes to her fridge. “Who’s the man you’ve been hanging around?”

Bianca stops tossing the salad and whips around to stare at her brother. A cocky grin on his face as he holds a bottle of her hard cider in hand. “What? I keep my eyes on you. I’ve got associates who are around that hospital you work at time to time or see you out and about. People have loose lips, you know.”

She scowls at him, sneering in his direction. “Godverdomme Jonathan! You know I fucking hate it when you do this shit!”Bianca slams down her wooden spoon on the counter. She throws her hands up as she returns to fixing food, pushing him as roughly as she could when he walks by her and sat back down. That grin still on his face as he sits ever so patiently on an answer. She weighed sighs and shoves his bowl at him. “He’s not any of your business if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh right, because you hanging around the most famous medical doctor this country let alone this city has ever seen is nothing to be worried over. People just don’t fall on Ethan fucking Ramsey’s dick without reason.” he eyes his salad, “you did a terrible job at tossing this by the way.”

“Shut up you vuile hoer. Just eat it will you? I don’t want the thigh meat going to waste.” Bianca snags up her own bowel and glares to her brother as she passes him a fork before angrily stabbing away at her food. She can feel his playful gaze on her as she huffs. “We just work together, okay? Nothing more.”

Jonathan hums, twirling his fork around as he stares at his food. “Really cause a little birdie told me you two were flirting in the coffee shop the other day.”

“I was  _ not _ flirting dammit,” Bianca grits through her teeth, “that wasn’t flirting that was me just using him to get what I wanted. You know I don’t care about people. I’m not like you.” She tenses her shoulders up as she thinks about that day again. The smell of him, the way he smiled and how messy his hair had been and the oh so sexy laugh of his. His gentle touches across her fingers and brushing his knees against hers from under the table. God did it do things to her. Things that even now old days later she can still feel and still-

“You know something Bee,” her brother’s voice stops her thoughts,his tone serious and reminds her of his lawyer voice, “ you’re blushing like how you did whenever you saw the Lamberts daughter at Sunday service. Admit it, you have at least some sort of feelings for the guy.”

To that, Bianca gives him and sets down her half eaten bowl of food and walks out of the kitchen, turning around one last time to look at her brother. “I’ll see you next week at Ines’s house. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” She leaves her brother to finish his food alone, her head spinning with racing thoughts as his words echoed in her head.

…

Halloween night comes before Bianca even knows it, and that also meant tonight was Ines’s party. It only seems like last week she was plotting Landry’s murder and now she actully was going to do it. And god, is she going to be pissed if Landry doesn’t show. 

It’s coming up on the time Ethan is suppose to pick her up, and she’s still getting ready. Dressed up in a form fitting little black dress with a pair of fishnet stockings and a pair of her best high heels. Her hand steadily applies her mascara, making the blend of green and hazel in her eyes pop even more. She hopes that murdering Landry isn’t bloody, she’d hate to get blood on her favorite dress. It hugs her in all the right places, leaving nothing to imagination. She tells herself she’s only wearing it as part of her costume.

_ Who are you kidding? The universe? God? You’re wearing this for Ethan too. Wanting his attention. _

_ _ She nearly jabs herself in the eye as she feels her hand tremble thinking of such a thought. She huffs, shoving away her make up and stopping while she’s ahead in how good it looks. Her winged eyeliner has never looked this good before quite frankly. It’s going to be a damn shame when it gets ruined later. 

Killing Landry should be easy, provided Landry is as stupid as she’s hoping. Hell, she’ll be willing to flirt with the disgusting rat if it meant getting him alone and finishing off him off. She spoke to Priya over the phone only days ago and the amount of money she was offering for the poor sap was enough to pay off Sienna’s student debt. Shame she couldn’t keep the body, however, as much as she would love to eat the fucker and cook his heart on a skillet. But Bianca couldn’t turn down a good pay out.

The doorbell ringing is what draws her out of her thoughts and makes her quickly gather her things and make haste for the door. She’s hoping it’s Ethan and not the trick or treaters, she’s leaving out the candy bowl for a reason while she’s gone. The ringing turns into sharp knocking and Bianca rolls her eyes. “Cool it! I’m coming I’m coming!”

Bianca shakes her head, her loose curls bouncing about as she unlocks the door and swings it open. “So impatient I swear to go- _ oh _ .” Her words catch in her throat as she feels breathless. Ethan stands at her front door, carrying a bottle of red wine in one hand, the other tucked behind his back. His hair is slightly less tame and has let a fine layer of stubble grown across his face. He’s out of his normal work attire and has exchanged it for a crisp deep red colored dress shirt, pressed black pants and a suit jacket that's black yet has a faint intricate pattern on it. The dark tones make those eyes of his stand out even more, the most brilliant shade of blue she’s ever seen really. And his smell, he smells like fine crafted cologne and a fresh shower. Bianca feels her eyes look over his whole body, unable to tear her gaze away as there’s a tug in the pit of her stomach.

Ethan’s throat clearing snaps her attention away from eye-fucking his body as she feels a rush of heat come to her cheeks as she tries to compose herself enough for him to not notice. “You uh… you look very well tonight, Ramsey. But I thought I said you had to have a costume.” 

She forces herself to look at his face, she finds him equally, if not more, red in his face and eyes struggling to keep a hold on her own. Though they travel down her body before snapping back up, causing Ethan to only further blush and appear flustered. “The same can be said for you. But it  _ is _ my costume. I have a mask in the car and a spare for you too.” He shifts uncomfortably, trying to hold his own ground as she extends the bottle of wine to her. “Wine, as promised. For doing this for me.”

_ Course you forget this was just a favor. This isn’t a date. It’s a favor so you could get free wine out of it and an excuse to murder someone _ .

Reminding herself that this was only a favor and nothing more makes her… feel some sort of way. A mix of disappointment and frustration that while she can cope with separately, she’s unsure how to cope with them at the same time. She forces herself to smile as she takes the bottle. “Right, totally forgot I even asked for this. Give me a moment.” She excuses herself in a hurried manner, going straight for her kitchen as she sets the bottle down and sees her hand shaking as she blows a breath out, running her hands through her hair as she paces back and forth in her kitchen. 

“Get a grip on yourself Bee. Just don’t feel, don’t feel… just don’t fucking feel!” She mutters to herself as she the feelings subside and she allows herself to feel calm enough again. She could last a night like this, right? 

“Not to be that person-- though I take pleasure in being so-- but we’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up in there! You know I’ll just leave you here, right?!” Ethan calls out to her. 

Bianca bites back the laugh wanting to rise to her lips as she comes back out and joins him on her porch. Shutting and locking the door behind her as she puts on a smile for him. “What’s the matter, Ramsey? You miss me while I was gone?”

Ethan snorts. “No. I just want to get this party over with is all.”

“Why Ramsey, I’m so hurt,” Bianca tells him as she playfully pushes on his chest. As she draws her hand away, she notices in his breast pocket the head of two roses: one black and the other red. She gives a light chuckle, running her fingers over the petals. “The flowers are a nice touch. They’re quite lovely.” 

A faint smile pulls at Ethan’s lips as he reaches for the black one, gingerly removing it from his pocket and holds it between his fingertips, as if he’s scared of ruining it’s perfect petals. He looks to her, his eyes held a courteous look to them as he tenderly brushes back some of her hair and tucks the rose behind her ear. His fingers grazing her cheek in a suave manner that feels herself lean into, wishing to have a moment more of his touch. The gesture makes Bianca’s heart beat faster than she’s ever felt before and her knees feel weak. It was taking everything in her to not lose it completely with these overwhelming feelings. God she wants to curse at him, shove him away and main him with her petite hands and watch the air leave his body. Those thoughts of hers that normally bring her giddiness and a sense of thrill aren’t there, not like the are with other people. No instead she’s feeling that god damn flutter in her heart, a fever hot blush against her skin and an ever so light yet powerful throb between her legs that makes her have to even cross her legs. 

_ This would be so much easier if I just killed you. Stop feeling Bianca! Stop it! You fucking idiot! Trusting a man again, a person? Trusting is how you got hurt. How you ended up becoming what you are. _

_ _ Ethan takes a step back from and extends his arm to her. “Shall we?”

_ Please just make it harder on me.  _

Bianca nods,looping her arm around his own as he walks her towards his car parked on the side of the road. It’s nicer or just as nice as the others parked around it as Ethan opens the door for her, allowing her to slip in and sit in the passenger's seat as he slides into the drivers a moment later. It’s leather interior cool against her skin. It smells exactly like him in this car.

“You know for a doctor, I didn’t think you guys could afford nice cars considering you’re drowning in debt,”Bianca teases him as Ethan pulls from the curb and heads off down the street. It’s a clean, smooth ride with nothing but the sounds of the radio playing and Ethan’s laughter.

“Trust me, compared to everyone else's, this car is like child's play. I work and meet people who own two teslas and a rolls royce on the side. I’ve had this old thing paid off for years. Besides, I make too much money then I know what to do with.”

_ That makes two of us, but at least one of us is doing legally. _

_ _ “Oh? So what do you do with it?” She questions to him, leaning close to him as his eyes are fixed on the road in front of them. “I know you write books. I’ve seen them before in the bookstore. That’s surely where you get the money from?”

Ethan groans, shaking his head as he glances to her and turns back to the road. She's not sure if he means to do it, but he places a hand on her knee and softly glides his thumb across her skin. It feels so natural and comforting. “Disgusting. I hate the fucking photo they have in those books, reminds me how old I am. But yes, book sales and my job with Naveen and at the hospital is where I make my money, I just donate it,” he merely shrugs, “I have no need for most of it. It’s just me and Jenner. I make sure it goes to things like the hospital, the arts, things I feel have some importance to this world.”

Bianca stares at him at a lost for her own words. Such a selfless man with a heart of gold under that rough exterior. For a moment, she feels a pang of remorse that he seems to care for someone like her as she turns away from him and stares off out the window. 

_ If only you knew what I did, Ethan if only you knew…  _

…

Ines’s party is in full swing tonight and she didn’t spare a single expense. Her place is done up in cobwebs, fake fog rolling across the floor, red lighting in nearly every room of her house and of course an assortment of Halloween themed booze and food. No one could have asked for a better party to be thrown.

And music, Bianca had to give credit to Ines for having impeccable music taste.

“So, what are you supposed to be?” 

The voice jars Biaca out of her thoughts and people watching. She’s been standing by the back door, sipping away on wine and watching out for Landry again. She’s been waiting all night to find the perfect time to drag that bastard to the woods and kill him.Ethan had been whisked off by Ines and Zaid the moment he set foot through the door. She turns to find Bryce and Jackie with drinks in hand. Jackie dressing up as a pirate and Bryce in his normal surgeon attire.

“Who’s asking?” Bianca smiles to the both of them.

Jackie is the one to laugh. “Me. The mask and the outfit are you some kind of… weird victorian hooker?”

“Jackie!” Bryce says, shocked as he turns to her.

Bianca laughs and holds her hand up. “No, no it’s alright. Supposed to be a demon, I think. Ethan is the one who gave me the mask, though… But I can be your victorian hooker if you’d like.” She purrs to Jackie in particular, stroking a hand up her arm seductively, throwing her a teasing smirk. Jackie flusters under her touch as she clears her throat and takes a quick swig of her drink. “Just have to pay me first.”

Bryce whistles, stifling his own laughter. “Careful, Bianca, wouldn’t want to make your boyfriend jealous.”

Bianca draws her hand away from Jackie as she shoots Bryce a look. The fun of flirting with Jackie ruined. “The fuck are you on about?”

Bryce shrugs, hiding his smirk behind his drinking cup as he takes a sip before setting his drink down. Nodding his head to his left, Bianca casually looks over, finding Ethan talking to Zaid and Ines. “You and Ethan? Coming here together, coming to me about buying you wine. Oh and the fact you two eye fuck each other in the hallways around work when you don’t coop yourself up in your office. Admit it, you’re  _ both _ something to each other.”

Bianca feels an unsettling sensation in her stomach. She’s thankful for the red lighting being able to hide her blush. Words form in her mouth but she doesn’t speak them. They’re tainted in anger and spite as she glances to her drink and downs it swiftly, shoving her empty cup straight into Bryce’s chest as she storms away from the both of them. If she spent another second around them, she’d end up murdering more than one person tonight. Perhaps it was childish, but god damn didn’t know how to cope with being confronted like that. People who confronted her always ended up dead. 

Hell, the next person to confront her would end up dead.

She rounds the hallway corner and heads straight for the bathroom. The moment her hand touches the doorknob the door itself swings right open, and she’s face to face with the guy she’s been plotting to murder for weeks now. Landry fucking Olsen. This was too good to be true, too easy to run into him just like this. In any other situation and party, she’d murder him in this very bathroom. 

But she would have to make do, like she always does.

“Bianca! Oh uhh, hi! I-I wasn’t expecting to run into you,” Landry sutters as he takes a step back, “you look distraught. Is everything okay?”

_ Oh, you’re so easy. You’re so easy I almost can’t feel sorry for you. _

_ _ She plays into her anger well. She pouts and wills herself to have a few tears come to her eyes and gives a fake sniffle. “No, no. I’m sorry Landry I should have knocked first. Guess I’m not thinking clearly.” She makes it a point to not wipe away her crocodile tears as she looks at him with fictitious misery. 

Landry frowns, buying right into the facade. “Hey, hey, hey! Oh god don’t cry! What happened?!” 

Bianca looks about, trying to see if anyone was paying attention to them. She lets a few more fake tears go, lifting up her mask to show off the tears that are pooling in her eyes. She shakes her head, waving him off. “N-not here. I-I don’t want to talk about it here.” She takes a shuddering breath and leans in closer to him. “Would… would you mind accompanying me outside? Take a walk? I just don’t want anyone to see me cry.”

Landry sollows hard, opening his mouth to speak before closing it, struggling with forming words before he simply nods. “Yeah. Yeah we can go take a walk. I’ve heard they’re actually really good in situations like this!” He says it with such joy, as if he really thought he’s helping her. She smiles at him, lowering her mask back on her face knowing full well she has him right where she wants him.

“Thank you, Landry, I appreciate it. I’ll meet you outside on the back porch okay? Let me just collect myself.”

She drops her smile the moment Landry is gone and off down the hall. She laughs at how much of fucking idiot Landry is. She slips into the bathroom and takes off her mask and sets it on the counter. Her makeup is only slightly smudged as she laughs. She hasn’t laughed like this since the day in her bathroom. It feels more sadistic, more vicious this time around. She reaches into her dress pocket and pulls out her phone, pulling up Zachary’s number and texting him.

_ You better be here. Tell me you’re here. _

She eagerly awaits his answer. Pacing back and forth as all she can do is wait. From within the bathroom, the music’s bass is louder and drums more in her ears. There are footsteps making their way down the hallway, approaching the bathroom with every passing second. Her phone vibrates and she glances hastily down at it, reading Zachary’s reply and smiling at the response just as the door bust open with force, the door knob leaving a dent in the wall. What startles her more is seeing a lip locked Danny and Sienna. 

The two almost stumble into her before noticing her. She’s not sure who’s more shocked: herself or them. 

“Bianca! H-hi! We we-were ju-just… uhhh… j-just!” Sienna stammers, her face bright red and her cat ears starting to fall off her head.

Bianca shakes her head as she held up her hands. God did they smell of booze. “I’ll just leave you two be.” A nervous laugh leaves her as she gathers her mask up again and hurries from the bathroom, slamming the door behind her as she knows she’ll need a drink-- or ten-- after she’s done and over with this all. She hastily walks down the hallway and slips into the second living room while pulling her mask on again. Around her people are dancing and becoming more and more intoxicated. It allows for her to slip out onto the back porch, finding Landry waiting right by the stairs for her. 

“Hey you made it! Do you want to talk now? Are you feeling better?”He asks her.

Bianca looks over at a few straggling party goers who linger on the porch. She shakes her head and beckoned him to follow her down the stairs. “Not here. Somewhere private. I thought we could take a walk in those woods over there. You know, away from prying ears and the smell of booze and sex.”

Landry makes a face, following her as they cross the backyard. “People are seriously hooking up in Ines’s house? Rude of them really. It’s her house.”

Bianca merely shrugs. The farther they walk away from the house, the more chill the night air becomes. Their only light is the moon that’s starting to be covered by a rolling in fog. “What can you do? I’m sure she’ll kick them out.”

“I suppose… but enough on that. Tell me what’s going on? You seemed pretty upset. Was it Jackie again?”

Bianca puts the fraudulent tears back on. She wistfully sighed, approaching the edge of the woods. “No not her. It was a stupid comment Bryce made that just… really got under my skin you know?” Landry nods to her as they aimlessly wander past a few of the first trees and disappear from the view of the house. She feels her heartbeat quickens and a giddiness ripples through her stomach. "You ever have people who do that, Landry? That just really get under your skin?"

"Well… between you and me, almost everyone really. I guess its because people are so hard for me to comprehend. Complex emotions and conflicting ethics. Its why I look up to Ethan so much, you know. Now that's a man whos grounded." Bianca turns away to hide the grimace on her face. Listening to him gush about Ethan like that makes her want to throw up. She pushes down her disgust and turns back to him, pretending to give her full attention as he keeps on talking. The more he talks of viewing people like machines, the more her pure hatred for him grows. 

"Don't even get me started the kids man. Look I don't mean to sound like an ass but I don't know  _ why _ Ramsey put me to work with them! They're so overly sensitive and end up hating me! I mean I don't know how the hell you deal with them, Bianca, these kids are just too difficult to manage and- hey Bianca? Where are we? How far out did we-"

Bianca comes unhinged at that moment, having finally made it to the clearing. With all her force, she swings her whole body weight into a sickening punch against the side of his jaw. Its enough the stagger Landry to the ground as she stands over him. She grabs a fist full of his hair and lands another blow right in his face, her knuckles colliding with his nose. She forcefully throws him back to the ground, watching him spit blood from his mouth as he looks up at her like a panicked animals.

“You crazy BITCH! What the hell is wrong with you?!” He yells at her, too shocked to move as he backs away from her, backing himself into a tree. He attempts to stand up but Bianca is quick to grab him by the front of his shirt and forcefully slam him back into the tree. A twisted smile coming across her face as she enjoys the fear in his eyes. 

“What’s wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?! I don’t like it when people talk bad about the kids.”

Landry squirms under her grip. His boney hands clawing at her own as he racks his nails across, leaving angry red markings. “That’s what this is?! That?! Lo-look I’m sorry! Okay! I’m sorry fo-for making them scared I-I’m just not good with them!”

Bianca scowls and throws him back to the ground. Landry scampers up to his feet in attempting to run away, managing to only get a few feet away before Bianca rips his feet from under him, dragging him across the forest floor as her heart pumps faster and faster. The thrill of watching him squirm, be in absolute chilled fear and fight to stay alive gave her a rush. He struggles with her, kicking her in the arm causing her to let go and put more distance between her and himself. She holds her arm, knowing a bruise will form there by tomorrow. She wickedly grins, watching him run.

Landry doesn’t make it far. Just as he’s to the other edge of the clearing, a force knocks him down to the floor, knocking the wind right out of him. Bianca watches her brother Zachary emerge from behind a small cluster of trees, steel baseball bat in hand that glistens against the fading moonlight. “Well, well, well. Looks like we got ourselves a runner here, sis.” Zarchary merely smiles and takes a hard swing down on Landry’s toros, the crunch of bones being heard in the still night followed by an anguished cry of pain. “Oh come on, Landry! That was just one hit! How you gonna keep up?”

Landry coughs, spitting up blood. “Fuck… fuck you… you fucking psy-psychopaths!” He coughs out, gasping for air as he rolls to his side. 

“Actually we’re sociopaths to be technical here, but whatever makes you feel better.” Bianca turns around, finding Jonathan behind her with his arms folded. 

Bianca gives a giddy laugh at that as she and Jonthan stride over to Landry. Zachary passing off the bat to her, a monstrous gleam in his eyes. He looked so much like their mother. Down to the very brown eyes and natural curls that she had. Her and Jonthan got unlucky in primarily getting their father’s genetics. Zachary is the eccentric one, wild yet calculated. Impulsive but a planner. Maybe that’s what made him the natural artist of the family. Surrounded by the three of them, Landry lays in a fetal position, coughing up blood and struggling to breathe. Bianca weighs the bat in her hands as she nods to her brothers, who lift him up to his feet and hold him in place.

"You know, if we were Italian we could have been part of the Italian mafia," Zachary chimes in as he chuckles at his own joke.

Jonathan rolls his eyes. "You pick now to crack jokes?" 

"And you pick now to have a stick up your ass? Oh wait, you'd actually like that, though." 

If it wasn't for Landry moving and trying to get away from them again, Jonathan may as well have punched their younger brother but instead plants his fist right into Landry's cheek; causing him to cough and spit out blood. 

"You're go-gonna kill me-me?! Bianca I tho-thought we were fri-friends!" Landry sobs out, the blood making an awful gurgling sound. The man is a disaster, reduced to broken bones and blood hopefully suffering the worst pain of his life. "You… you're all cra-crazy!" 

Bianca lifts Landry’s chin up with her dainty, manicured finger. Pouting at him before it turns into a sneer and she smacks him across the face.The blood landing on the ground and her brothers. “You have no fucking idea how long I’ve waited to kill you, Olsen. How long  _ we've  _ waited to kill you.

Through his ragged breathing, Landry manages to choke out some words again. “What… what the fuck are you?” He coughs and trembles in place,Zachary twisting his arm behind his back causing him to sob in pain. “Why are you doing t-this to me?!”

"Because it's fun and we get paid. Now stop talking. You're a lot more bearable to be around when you're not whining." Zachary gives a sharp tug on his arm for no reason other then to inflict more pain. 

Bianca rolls her eyes, scoffing at Landry as she circles him the way a predator circles its prey. “You said it yourself. You can’t stand the kids, and I can’t stand bad people, Landry,” she swings the bat right into his kneecap, a gut-wrenching sound omitting from his body as he screams only to be muffled by Jonathan's hand. The anger bubbles up in her, festering more and more as she stalks him over. He’ll never suffer enough to her liking, not even if in death he had pity taken on him. It only drives her fury and thrill of knowing she’s ending his life soon. “You’re nothing but a monster, a plague. Something that's to be eradicated and destroyed. I built this family's  _ fucking _ empire, and I will see that it reigns in glory and fortune and not fall like the final days of Rome! Don't think that begging to God will save you now," she leans in and is right up against his face, her voice like a vipers poison, "because I intend to make sure God doesn't hear you." 

In a split second choice, Landry bites her brothers hand, who yanked it back in pain before Landry spits on Bianca’s face. She can feel blood trickling down her nose as she wipes it away and flicks it aside. She sees Jonathan’s arm flinching, ready to suckerpunch him in the chest but Bianca gets the blow first. Her anger spilling over as she takes the bat against his second kneecap and busts it, bringing him down to the ground once more allowing for Jonthan to fully let go and focus on their baby brother’s hand. From the floor, Landry stares up at her, battered and broken, reduced to blood and broken bones. He’s starting to struggle with his breathing. “Who… who hurt you? W-What the hell h-happened to you?”

Bianca laughs in his face, as if to mock his question. Its a crazed laugh, unhinged and on edge as she tosses around the thoughts of what made her like this. People love asking the “who” and never the “why” about how they are. She throws the bat to her brothers feet, eyes focused in on Landry’s broken body. “Zachary, Jonathan; do your big sister a favor and go get the supplies. Now. You know I hate the clean up.”

From the corner of her eyes, Jonthan strides on over and lands a swift hard stomp against Landry’s nose, breaking the cartilage and bones. He spit on him too as Landry can only wither in pain on the ground. Bianca looks to him as Jonathan places a protective hand on their little brother and passes her a look. With a nod to them both, they start their leave. 

Landry--stupidly yet fighting to survive-- starts to drag himself away from her. Using what little strength he has left as he calls after her brothers. “D-don’t go! Yo-you can’t lea-leave me here! She-she’s gonna k-k-kill me!” Bianca angrily grabs him by his leg and harshly drags him against the ground, his knee popping out of place as she lets go and digs her high heel into his chest, making a point to inflcit pain. 

Through languished sobs and terror filled pleading, Landry asks her again who it is that’s caused her to be this way and it only sends her into a deeper delirious fit of laughter. “Who?! WHO?! You’re so fucking rich just like the rest of them! Nobody hurt us! Hurt me!” Bianca leans down and forcibly grabs him by the chin. Under her palm she can feel the way he shakes in fear. How his body is gasping for air to breath just to cling to life a little longer. Her anger mingles with a high, at least the start of one. It’s a marvelous feeling when it first starts off.

“It’s genetics, baby! It’s in my fucking blood!” She slides her hand down to his neck and then the other. He still puts up a fight, a weak one though. Removing her heel from his chest, she sinks down and firmly embeds her knee into his sternum, adding more weight to increase is labored breathing. His pulse quickens under her palm as she presses down on his throat. It increases her high, making her feel a bit dazed in the head. She’s thrown into another fit of broken and heinous laughter. “You can thank my god damn FATHER for being this way! Have a lot of unresolved daddy issues with him!”

Landry kicks his feet as he grabs her arm and tries to pry it off of himself. She presses down more into him, enjoying the sick pleasure of feeling the air constrict in his throat. She sharply inhales as slips a hand up behind his head and the other plants itself right between his chin and throat. The sheer paralyzing terror makes the moment all worth while to her. This was the exact opposite of what she was only last week. Of feeling so broken and defeated only to be feeling exhiltered and high on causing the death of a monster. He’s coughing up blood like its a water facquet. It slicks her hands and some of it sprays across her face.

She leans in as close as she can to him once more. So close she sees her reflection in his terrorized eyes. His body is starting to slack under her, fighting between staying awake and passing out. A sick smile comes over her as she licks his blood from her lips. He tries to speak but she puts a finger to his lips. “Shhh… it’s okay. Don’t be scared. Just close your eyes and count down from three. I’ll start.” She tilts his head back as she hums, sliming as blood drips into her mouth. With each passing word she tilts his head farther back and throws all her body weight into it. “Three… two… one…” 

She doesn’t give him the chance to even finish the last breath he’s on before his neck snaps and body goes slack. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh this chapter is a fucking emotional mess that doesnt make any sense but *mario voice* here we go ! 
> 
> back at it again with the not checking for spelling mistakes

The high of feeling life slip through her feels is so goddamn good. She licks her lips again, swallowing down blood as she sucks some from her index finger as she stands up. His limp body laying still, wrapped in a blanket of cool fog and dead leaves. She hears the crunching of leaves and breaking through, her brothers arrive back with a third person in tow. A woman who Bianca is instantly smitten with, an inhuman aura around her. She looks so young yet so dangerous too. Bianca as to tear her eyes away to focus on her brothers. They carry an array of chemicals, bags and the back up identical dress she asked for.

“You must be Bianca Hemgrove. My oh my… your brothers failed to tell them they have such a pretty older sister.” Before Bianca can even register it this mystery woman is in front of and trailing her fingers along her arm, not minding the blood that coats her hand. Her eyes are the most alluring part to her, so alluring that Bianca has a hard time listening to her. Her touch makes her high only that much worse to fight through. “I like my women rather unhinged, it’s sexy, wouldn’t you agree?

Struggling to maintain any sort of composer and not fall into a sea of ecstasy and pleasure, Bianca manages a quick nod. “Priya I presume?”

“The one and only, princess,” Priya purrs, “I know this is a business transaction but maybe you and I can arrange for something more later? You did just kill a man for me after all.” 

_ Oh fuck, she’s hot. I’d let her kill me in a heartbeat. _

“Enough, Priya. Stop hitting on my sister,” Zachary buts in, “she’s seeing someone as well. Sorry we’re all spoken for.”

Priya pouts, drawing her hand away. “You siblings are no fun.”

“It’s family business,” Jonathan adds, “we look out for each other.”

Priya’s eyes look her over in a hungry manner. Bianca wants nothing more then to plant her own lips on Priya’s and find out what else she can do with those hands. “So you have someone too? What’s their name, sweetheart? I’m sure you can do better.”

_ Ethan _ . The name echos in her skull as she finds herself able to come out from the entrance Priya had on her as she shakes her head. It still didn’t mean she was out of the woods with her elevated high from just murdering Landry. She felt like she could do anything to anyone. Bianca lets out a breath she wasn’t aware she was even holding in. “Ethan… that’s his name.”

Priya makes a face but Bianca storms past her and goes right up to Jonathan, snagging the dress from his hands as she makes her brothers turn around and slips off her dress and hurriedly slips the new one back on. She shoves the bloody one into his hands and takes the towel he held as swell and wipes down her face and hands before giving it back. She’s not sure if it’s the high or her body on autopilot, but Bianca needs something.

She  _ needs _ someone.

She mutters something to her brothers, her mind in a hazy fog as she can’t even be bothered to give Priya a proper goodbye but tells her to call her later. She has faith in her brothers and Priya to clean up. Sure there’s going to be talk and investigations, but that’s what makes this all the more fun to her. But this high that’s autopiloting her right now, Bianca doesn’t exactly mind it. Makes everything feel more intense, from the cold wind that breezes through the trees to the water vapors of the fog against her skin. She puts more distance between the murder and herself as she hurries through the woods. The house coming back into view and the music, even from a distance, is thundering in her ears. 

It’s not hard for her to slip back into the house. She comes in through the unlocked front door, greeted by the aromua of heavy booze, mixing perfumes and sex. Her skin burns and her heartbeat becomes intune to the music as she pushes through people. Some are chatting away, others are drunk in full on philosophical conversations while others dance to the music. She’s some faces she knows. Like Jackie who’s playing beer pong in the dining room and Bryce who’s drunk yet flirting with Harper from the sidelines of the beer pong game. 

_ No, not who you’re looking for. Where is he? Where’s Ethan? _

She slips into the main living room where she was earlier this evening. Her eyes scanning the room and finding no sign of Ethan yet spots Zaid and Ines flirting on the couch. Finally, only took them this long.It’s still not Ethan though, hell, she’s wondering if Ethan didn’t go fuck off somewhere to try and find her. She hastily leaves the room and goes straight to the second living. 

_ God, feel like I’m fuckign backtracking all over again. _

The room is crowded with people, maybe even more this time around. But everyone is dancing, feeling the music as it’s the loudest in this room. Bianca can feel it dance on her fingertips as this high makes her feel incredible. She grips the wall beside her as she looks for Ethan. Her mind fully focused on finding him and only him. If he’s not here, well, she isn’t sure what she’s going to do. Her eyes dart to the back wall, peering through the gaps of people trying to see where Ethan is. There’s a part in the crowd as someone pushes their way through and that’s when she catches him. 

Ethan looks relaxed, probably the most relaxed she’s ever found him to be. His clothes a little ruffled up, his hair more untidier than before. He’s having a drink in hand and takes a sip of it as he avoids being elbowed in the face by a partygoer. He looks over his shoulders and in every direction he could until he looks dead at her. Her heart flips in her chest and stomach has that familiar pull again, the same as when she saw him on her front door step. It sends a jolt of pleasure up her spine that almost makes her moan. 

With haste, she pushes her way through the crowd to reach him. The world doesn’t exist outside of him, outside of them. Everyone else becomes background noise to her and Ethan is her focus. When she’s within reach of him, he takes her by the hand and pulls her close.She slips her arms around his neck and Ethan drops his drink so he can wrap both arms around her waist. She presses herself against him and in return he tightens his grip around her. 

“Missed you,” Ethan mutters, “where the hell were you?”

Bianca gives a teasing smile. Everything feels so  _ right _ in this moment. “Family business. Sorry, did I scare you?”

Ethan hums lowly. He sways in place to the music, and leans in close to her ear. Lips nipping at her earlobe. “Absolutely frightened. Promise not to scare me again like that?”His voice growls in her ear, teeth rough on her skin. It makes her gasp and stomach twist. She tangles her fingers into his hair as she presses in more to him.

“Just dance with me, Ramsey. I’m here now.” This up close she can smell how strong the whisky on his lips and that cologne on his body, its enough to drive her crazy, enough to heighten her high more. Everything she’s feeling in the moment, everything tonight, feels implausible. People like her don’t feel very much, if at all. If she was sober and thinking clearly, she’s fairly certain she wouldn’t be allowing for this to happen; however, Ethan seems to be the exception.

She slips her arms from his neck and Ethan is more than eager to take her by the hand and spin her around, pressing her back against his body. He sways them to the music while his strong hands roam freely across her exposed skin. On occasion, he dips his head down and kisses against her neck which causes her to grind up against him. Every kiss he plants makes her breath leave her body and fingers reach behind and curl into hair, tugging on it with every breath-taking kiss he gives her. His fingers brush down her leg and trail across the sliver of skin that's exposed between her stockings and her dress. Her body giving a shiver of pleasure as she swallows back a moan.

“You like that?” He breathes against her neck, his voice deep and raw with emotion. 

“Oh sh-shit,” she wistfully moans out, “talk to me like that again.”

“Like this, baby, is this what you like?” He says it right in her ear as his fingers begin to hike up her dress and expose more of her flushed skin that he delightfully runs his fingers across, getting another pleasurable shiver out of her. “Tell me what you want and I’m yours.”

Bianca lets a moan slip pass her as she turns her head to gaze at him. Even in the red lighting, she can see just how entranced he is with her. She clumsily pulls the mask away from his eyes and throws it aside, turning fully around as she leans into his body, backing the two of them into the corner of the room. Their arduous breathing is hot and thick between them. Ethan slips off her mask with ease and tosses it aside, she catches the way his eyes roam her face with a deep sense of lust and hunger.

_ Just give in for one night. Let yourself feel something even if it is just for tonight.  _

_ _ It’s the high talking, she’s very sure of it.

She’s knows its her who makes the first move.She cups each side of his face as she plants a firm, voracious kiss on his lips. The whisky burns against her lips, his stubble tickling her cheeks. Hips lips are inviting and perfect,  _ he’s  _ perfect. She kisses him like the world is ending and this was the last kiss they’d ever share. She pulls away for a brief moment, her thoughts trying to catch up with her as to what she just did. Its so fogged with the murder high, pleasure and alchol still running in her system. Bianca is ready to fully back away when Ethan goes in for his own kiss. It’s ravenous and powerful, longing. His moans rough and breathless.

She kisses him back with as much raw lust as she could. It’s heated and fast, hands roaming bodies, stertorous moans passing between them. His hands ride up her thighs and fingers push past her panties that are starting to become wet. She crosses her legs as she mewls against his fingers brushing against her opening.

“E-Ethan!” she cries out between their kiss, breaking it for a moment. Her fingers tangled up in his hair. 

“Please? God you’re so wet, Bianca… I just want a taste.” His words are hot against her neck as she moans again and tugs at his hair, causing him to moan in return. 

His thumb presses itself up against her, her skin feels feverish as blood drums in her ears. She gives him a dazed look as she leans back in and bites his lips, tugging at the bottom. “Not here. Private.”

Ethan grins. “Follow me.”

Keen on getting to eat her out, Ethan headlongs through the crowd while towing her behind. They stumble about, moving through people as they narrowly collide with other partygoers as Ethan opens the front door and heads for his car. The brisk air stinging her skin as the heat off of both of them is so great it leaves a steam trail in the air. He fumbles for car keys in his pocket, unlocking it and allowing for them to slide into the backseat. Bianca in first followed by Ethan who slams the door shut.

_ At least he has a nice car _ .

The leather is cold on her skin but their hot breaths and bodies take the chill off. She's laid out on the back seat with Ethan above her, her lips locked onto his as he hikes her dress up and allows for his hands to take off her red lace panties. She kicks off her heels to allow Ethan to fully remove them and discard them to the floor. They're like teo horny teenagers, removing each others clothes as quickly as possible and fumbling while doing so. She takes off his jacket, he takes off the fishnet stockings. She practically tears off his pants, he slips her out of her dress. The only thing left on her is her bra and he's only in his boxers and shirt.

They barely admire each others bodies before they are back to making out. Ethan has one hand on the seat to brace himself as the other is on her inner thigh. His kisses trail down her body, every kiss taking her breath away and sending sparks of pleasure through her. Mostly down to the deepest part of her stomach where it pulls and tugs within her. It makes right in between her legs slick and head swirl with racing thoughts. She hooks a leg around his lower half bringing their bodies closer together. His cock rubbing right against her through his boxers. His kisses go lower and lower down her body, the kiss he plants on her hip bone makes her whole body jolt.

"Fuck! God  _ damnit  _ Ethan! You-you fucking tease!" Bianca hiss through gritted teeth. Her hands go to his hair that she tugs on with a vipers grip and an elongated moan leaving Ethan, his lips parting with the moan. Bianca tugs hard again and he lifts his head up. A lustful haze in his eyes as he bites down on his lip and stifled a moan when she so much as tugs on his hair. "Oh you like that? Hu-huh? You like  _ pain _ Ramsey?"

Ethan rest his face against her thigh, licking his lips as he turns his head and kisses her feverish skin in light pecks before biting on her skin. It stings at first but the pain turns into her own pleasure that pushes her close to the edge. "I like you." 

_ I like you… _ the statement hit her like she's been hit by a truck. Hearing him say it out loud like that. Bianca can't wrap her head around it, let alone believe anyone would direct those words to her and actually mean them. 

_ No. No he doesn't mean them, it's not true it just isn't. It's the whiskey talking. This is buzzed Ethan talking, not sober. _

Words paint her tongue but she never speaks them. Ethan dips his head down below and puts his mouth right on her opening and starts eating her out. The initial contact causing an abrupt gasp to leave her throat and body to arch. Her nails dig into his hair and she wraps her other leg around him. He hooks his hands around her legs to bury himself deeper into her, rocking her against the seat as his tongue works into every inch of her. He digs his strong but calloused palms into her flesh, massaging it as she bucks her hips. When he reaches her clit, she nearly sits up from her spot as a pleasure filled cry escapes her but Ethans hands squeeze her thighs and pull her in closer. She rips one hand away from his hair and braces it against the the car window, grasping at nothing but fogged up glass. 

Tears sting her eyes as Ethan licks and sucks her off. The pleasure so euphoric its a painful bliss to be in. Her legs tremble while in between them grows wetter and wetter. The tug gnawing at her stomach and spreading through her body in a tingling warmth. Cries turn into moans as she grasped helplessly at the window all the while Ethan is going at her harder. 

"Ethan! I'm close! G-God I'm so close, plea-please let me come! "

Ethan draws back, licking slowly up to her clit while staring up at her. He takes one hand and intertwines it with her own. A cocky grin spreading across his face. "But I like hearing you scream my name. Scream it harder for me, babygirl." 

His hand squeezes her own as he goes back to sliding his tongue up to her clit and sucking it off. She gives a sudden and twisted tug at his hair, causing a large moan to him and body to tremble. They return back to their rhythmic pace yet it's harder this time, showing how much of a desperate need they have for one another. That tug in her stomach burns and the burn spreads out through the rest of her body. Words are like whispers on her lips as her thoughts can barely keep up with her and words are a struggle to form. Bianca’s words grow louder and louder the closer Ethan pushes her to the edge. She’s so close she swears stars dance in vision.

“Ethan… Etham o-oh fuck let me come! I can-can’t hol-hold off anymore! I’m clos-close! Im so close I’m gonna come!” she cries out, the words are raw and powerful that they hurt her throat as Ethan finds--by sheer luck-- her sweet spot and she’s done for. Waves of euphoric bliss rip through her, it feels like another powerful high on top of the one she was just coming off of. She senses Ethan’s lips against her own, his kiss is sloppy and ranvious but she’s not any better. Their kiss engrossed them, limbs get entangled together, fingers caught in hair or clawing up the others back. Though the orgasm ebbs way, their starved affection and passion doesn’t. It’s enough to carry them later and later into the night.

_______________________________

It’s the familiar sound of a garbage truck that wakes Bianca up. It stirs her from her sleep as she groans, a soreness being felt all over though it is worse in her arm and legs. There’s a chill in the air as she opens her eyes but immediately shuts them when the world is too bright for her. She reaches out expecting to find more of her bed but all she gets is ice cold leather under her fingertips. She takes her hand back as she wills her eyes to open. She’s greeted with the sight of Ethan’s face mere inches from hers. The sight startles her into bolting right up and looking around to find herself in the backseat of Ethan’s car. Their clothes, though not all of them, on the car floor.

“Oh my god,” she breathes out, seeing her breath in the air, “no, no no… this can’t be happening.” She’s frightened to speak above a whisper. Her eyes follow the clothes on the floor and trail up to herself and Ethan. Both of them stretched out on the backseat with Ethan on the inside and her on the outer edge. She’s naked, almost, save for her bra she still has on and Ethan still has his boxers on and shirt, his arm draped over her waist . The sight startles her as she hurriedly picks up Ethan’s jacket from the floor and clutches it to herself. 

The memories of last night sock her right in the face, rushing in all at once as she’s forced to recount last night. She murdered Landry, that much was clear. Everything else passed in a blurr. She recalls speaking to Priya and her brothers, and the next making out with Ethan in the back of her car where they-

“Oh my god!” Bianca says out loud putting her head in her hands, fingers running through her hair. Landry isn’t her first concern, Ethan and her is. The windows are all fogged up, thank god, probably the only good thing about the morning. She turns to Ethan and shakes him in a loutish manner. “Ethan! Ethan! Wake up! Come on wake up!” The panic rises in her chest, and where there was panic the anger typically followed. She swallows hard, trying to reel it all in but in her head, everything is a jumbled up fucking mess that she can’t fix. 

Ethan stirs and gives a dragged out groan as he rubs at his eyes. “Fuck sake Hemgrove, not how I expected to be woken up.”

“Yeah and I didn’t expect to sleep with you in the back of your fucking car!” Bianca shot back at him as he sits up. He blinks and adjusts to the blinding light that's being filtered through the fogged up windows. 

He looks between himself and her, a bit of a startled look coming to his face. “Oh shit…” 

“That’s all you have to say?! Seriously?!”

Ethan grimaces as he stares at her. “Well if you give me two seconds to wake up and let my memory comes to me I might have more to say.” 

Frustrated, she shoves his jacket back into his chest as she fishes for her dress and finds it. Her hand trembling as she tries to find the zipper to it. “Oh like what? That you’re sorry you fucking ate me out in the backseat of your car? That we slept together! God I’m thankful I actually didn’t let you put your dick in me.” She pulls on her dress and doesn’t bother to ask him to zip it up nor does she bother to get anything else off the floor.

Ethan digs around for his pants, his lips pressed in a hard line as he shakes his head. “Fucking hell, Bianca, why are you so pissed off at me? Is it really because I’m not saying sorry? I drank last night but I wasn’t drunk. I remember what we did and I remember it was a mutual agreement.”

Bianca looks over at him as she opens the car door. Outside is nothing but fog that most likely is still lingering from last night. The pavement wet and water rolling off the hood indicating it rained last night as well. “That’s not my point. Now put the rest of your clothes on and give me my shoes.” She slides out and slams the door shut. Her whole body running on pure nerves at this point as she doesn’t register the cold. If she thinks on it, that sensation from last night comes back churning in her stomach that leaves her somewhere in between being panicked and horny.

Just as she goes around the car to get in the passenger seat, Ethan opens his door and steps out clothed yet a disheveled mess. He looks at her with confusion and frustration. “Hold on, what the fuck is your point then? Enlighten me so I can understand.”

_ I’m angry at myself because I slept with you! That’s my point!  _

_ _ It is just as simple as telling him that, but she can’t. Somehow she can’t bring herself to because that means explaining to him what she is. Bianca stare back at him as she shakes her head and takes her shoes from him and moves past. “My point is we slept together. What other point do you want?”

Ethan scoffs and runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know maybe why you’re being so fucking stubborn and wont talk to me and tell me what’s seriously bothering you?” Bianca opens the passenger side door and looks on after him before sliding into the seat and slamming the door. A moment later Ethan slides in next to her. It’s hard for her to believe only last night here they were sitting, his hand on her thigh and talking about their passions in life. 

_ No, it’s better this way. Better you push him away. _

_ _ Ethan blows a calming breath out as he starts the car up and grips the steering wheel. “Bianca please just tell me what it is that’s bothering you. Was it something I said? Something I specifically did? Because if so tell me otherwise I’m not fucking apologzing. I don’t have to.”

Bianca rolls her eyes as she snapped her head in his direction. “And I keep going in circles that my problem is we slept together! How does that not bother you?!”

Ethan looks over at her, the anger is voided on his face but it’s burning in his eyes. “You know what, I'm not mad at sleeping with you and I don't regret last night at all, that's why I'm not bothered. If that's not the answer you wanted sorry to disappoint you but it's the answer you're getting. I'm more pissed with your attitude right now. What the hell is your problem? Because frankly, you’re acting like a goddamn child!” his voice is strained at the end, choking back the anger though he lets some of it slip. The yelling doesn’t bother her, she’s used to getting yelled at. 

It’s being called a child she can’t handle. Bianca turns away from him, staring out the window at the world passing by outside. “Don’t you fucking  _ dare _ call me a child.”

Ethan bitterly laughs at her. “Then don’t act like one. Because I’m not playing your games. I’ve played them before when I was younger and I’m too old to be playing them now.”

“Oh that’s SO rich coming from you, Ramsey!” Bianca snaps at him. Slamming her palm on the armrest of the door. She looks back to him, rage festering in her chest. She keeps her arms locked at her sides for fear that if she moved them, he’d see her trembling with anger. Her throat starts to ache as the threat of tears come to her eyes. “Because who the fuck are you to tell me about playing childish games! You’re such an ass you know that!”

Before she even lets Ethan get a word in, she stops him. “Uh I’m not finished. You wan’t to talk about being a fucking child! Playing games?! Then what the  _ hell _ have we been playing at the last oh what month or so we’ve known each other? The hallways, around the hospital? We play cat and mouse with each other all the fucking time, Ethan! I’ve told you, stop caring about me! Stop trying to get to know me and”

“Because I can’t stop caring about you! I  _ want _ to care about you, Bianca, but you don’t let me!” Ethan snaps, his voice cracking with emotion as he breathes in and out through his nose, the breaths sharp and clear as Bianca can tell just by the sounds he’s trying to keep it together and not break down. His anger is always chilling. It’s a cold and calculating anger that gives her a thrill. Though there is a pang of remorse at seeing him… vulnerable. It’s very rare that Bianca ever cares about anyone genuinely, and Ethan is the exception, just as he’s always been since the first day they met.

To hear him openly admit to caring about her, Bianca doesn’t know what to say to it. She’s stunned into silence, unable to freely express her emotions like she can at home. There’s no booze to drown it all out with, no one that she can go out and go freely murder as a threpatic stress relief. She can’t even freely lose her cool and become an unhinged mess in front of him. For once, in what is probably her whole life, she has to confront and deal with her emotions and feelings for Ethan in a “mundane” way. The way she told her clients to deal with their problems, advice she rarely follows.

Bianca doesn’t say anything to him as they turn down her road. The familiar houses coming into view. The thick tension in the air is distressing and lingering over them. She has her back to him, staring out the window once more as her own house comes into her view, barely visible through the fog. Ethan just stops the car, letting it run idly as it was clear he wasn’t going to talk. Through the silence, she can hear his uneven breathing as she’s sure its the anger and whatever the hell else he’s feeling getting to him. 

Finally, Bianca opens the car door, greeted by the smell of damp leaves and crisp morning air. She pulls herself from the car yet her hand lingers on the door. It’s strenuous for her, but mustering up what willpower she had left, she turns around, staring into the car seeing Ethan with sitting back in the driver's seat, staring at anywhere but her. To say that it didn’t hurt would be an understatement.

She can’t even muster up a thank you to him. Any words she wants to speak to him are fruitless. Tortuously, she shuts the door without another word. Her walk from the car to the front of her house feels like a lifetime but she manages to get to the front door, fumble around for her keys in her bag, and open the door, slamming it right behind her, not bothering to see if Ethan left or not. 

The house feels empty to her. Much colder, much more alone. Her wine bottle is still sitting out on the counter. Nothing has been moved or touched. She throws her purse and keys down on the table by the door and kicks off her heels as she walks down the hall to her room.She knows she told herself in the car that pushing Ethan away is what’s best for her, but now being forced to confront her feelings without her vices made her think differently. 

A weighted pressure is building in her chest as every step she takes aches the closer she gets to the bedroom. Her fingertips have but barely brushed the doorknob when her vision fills with tears. They came so suddenly that she hadn’t even registered she’s crying. Crying was an oddity to her when sober and for once in her life, thinking clearly. There's some underlying fear about being stricken across the face with an open palm or belt, but fear be damned she still allows for herself to sob. To cry over the pent up emotions she’s kept hidden away. The hurt, the heartache. Hell, she cries because she doesn’t know what else to do and how to handle-soberly-her problems. 

Bianca pushes open the bedroom door and doesn’t bother to shut it as she makes headway for her bed and sinks right into it, falling into a fit of sobs that are muffled by a pillow. She regrets now how she acted with Ethan, how she really is pushing away the one person who genuinely  _ seems _ to care for her. It makes her tears run faster and feel hotter against her cheeks. Makeup smudges onto her pillow as she lifts her head up and wipes at her eyes. She rolls over in bed, staring up at the ceiling as the sound of her own sniffles and choked up tears keep her company. 

Her phone starts to vibrate somewhere within the bed. The feeling of joy, and maybe a tad bit of desperation and longing, runs through her like a lightning strike as she hurriedly looks for her phone. Upon finding it, buried under pillows, she answers it.

"Ethan! Oh god just please don't say anything I-" 

"Ah, so that's his name. Ethan. And what's this I'm hearing? Are you crying? We don't cry, crying makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability makes you sloppy." There's the sound of gruff laughter on the end followed by a harrowing cough. "Oh, but what does it matter. I didn't call you to berate you or get details about what man has been between your legs, I called because I have family business to talk to you about. Urgent family business. You will meet me at 8 tonight at Deuxave's."

Bianca sat still in silence. Her grip tightened around her phone as a scream was building up in her that she swallows down. From the very moment that voice came over the other end, a cold chilled her whole body.

For the first time in years, Bianca is reminded what fear is and what it's like to feel it.

"Fuck you, Atticus. I don't have to do shit!" She snaps back, biting back the sob that wishes to escape. 

There's a low rumble on the other end, may maybe it's him laughing to himself or another cough plaguing his chest. But once it passes, his voice is malicious, deep and clear. "You want to try that again? I said you  _ will _ join me tonight. I didn't give you the option not to go. And I also raised a  _ respectful _ daughter who properly addresses people." 

Her stomach feels uneasy and palms sweat. She glances out her bedroom window. Wondering if he's parked out there watching her. Hell, she wonders how he knew anything in general, especially her and Ethan.

She swallows hard. Her own words feel like poison on her lips. But in that moment, she felt like the young girl she once was all over again. His voice had that affect on her. Reducing her down to a shell unable to fight back. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I'll see you tonight," she gags trying to say her next word, "fa-father. You can-can count on it, sir." 

The condensing nature to his voice is like nails on a chalkboard to Bianca. "There? Was that so hard, sweetheart? I'll be expecting you. Don't be late." 

The hang up tone gets drowned out by her scream. The outrage and torment echoing across the room and down through the hall. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally the only way to sum up this chapter is two words: daddy issues 
> 
> also consistent plot and actually properly planning this fic out? Idk her, somehow it's gotta come together at the end
> 
> EDIT: there is a phone number in this chapter and i totally made it up on the spot so if it happens to be real... well rip to whoevers phone it is

This is the first time in eight years, roughly, that Bianca has dreaded something. She’s not the one to dread, truthfully, she takes everything in stride and does things without a second thought, because dreading means time to feel and that is time she doesn’t have.

But Atticus, that’s the one man who could just  _ do  _ things to her, and not in a good way. Not like Ethan.

Deuxave’s is, forthrightly, one of the most upscale eateries in Boston. Bianca has been here on a few occasions. Zacahry’s art company throws parties here, Jonathan sometimes has celebratory victory dinners here on the company’s dime. She’s not sure why her Atticus asks her to come here. Hell, she’s not even sure why he’s in fucking Boston. But that’s on the bottom list of her issues. 

Keeping Ethan safe was her biggest issue at hand right now. And the fact that Atticus is running twenty minutes late for dinner ,currently.

She sits in a tiny corner booth, far as she can be from other people. The place is crowded yet the ambiance is rizty and soft. She people watches from her seat, itching to just maybe kill one of these rich fucks sitting at their table sipping on wine that’s coming from a bottle that costs more than some people’s rent. She thinks about Luther and his wife, cheating, rich bastard he was. She’s shocked the police never came after her, yet again, this city’s police department is stuipd as they come. She gingerly slips her hand around her wine glass and sips on her water. Being this sober and clear headed under the stress and pressure is a shock for her. She’s forgotten what it’s like to feel this...mundane.

When her phone buzzes, Bianca eagerly picks it up, heart rate quickening as she prays its a text from Ethan only to be disheartened to find it’s a text from her brother Zachary, a picture of what red paint to use for a painting. She rolls her eyes. 

_ I’m a psychologist not an artist, dumbass. _

It’s what she wishes to type but doesn’t. She texts an eye roll emoji and follows it up saying he should pick cardinal red instead before closing out of the message. Still on her phone, she swipes over to her contact list and lands on Ethan’s number, her finger hovering over it, trembling ever so slightly as she desperately wishes to call it, call _him_. Their fight was just this morning and it feels like a lifetime ago. How much has happened to her in the past twenty-four hours? 

_ A lot, a fucking lot has happened. You’re just sober enough to remember most of it now. _

“Not polite to have phones at the dinner table. I raised you better.”

She glances up from her phone and the device just about slips from her hands. Bianca clenches her jaw up and squares her shoulders back. The eyes are what get noticed right away, a habitual habit of hers. Her and Jonathan got Atticus’s eyes, down to very shade of green and the freckles of hazel that blend with said green. His southern accent is still thick, his hair still clean cut. Being within his mere presence, Bianca senses the raw anger and wickedness that lays below the surface. The outside world sees a sweet, southern gentleman while Bianca sees nothing but a monster. A walking plague upon this earth. She supposes that's one thing Atticus and Landry have in common: diseased monsters who need to be dealt with.

_ Well, one of them is dealt with at least. _

“You didn’t raise me, Atticus,” Bianca pauses, “and you said never be late to dinner.”

Atticus gives a stiff laugh as he places both his hands on his cane. “It was to keep you kids in check.”

“Right, and the twenty lashes with your belt was just a reminder.”

Their eyes never detour from one another as Atticus lowers himself into the empty seat across from her. Bianca takes note of how old he looks, she wagers that the last eight years haven’t been kind to him. His hair, once black just like hers, is now graying along with his beard. There are more wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He no longer smells like whisky, yet he smells like dusty church bibles and cleaning supplies.

Outworldly, Bianca is trying to reel in the fear that's struck her. Her jaw starts to ache, her heart feels ready to explode and the world grows just a tad bit louder to her. Sweat even builds up on the back of her neck.

A few moments of painful silence pass them as they just stare at each other, the waiter being the only solace as it’s a very pretty young woman who tops off Bianca’s water and puts in the order for a bottle of wine to be brought to the table.

“How is Elizabeth?” Atticus asks, breaking the silence the moment the waitress leaves. He settles back into his seat, folding his hands on the table. Bianca sees he still wears his wedding band. A phantom pain comes across her left cheek, the good days where when he took the ring off before beating her. 

“You mean Zachary? Your  _ son _ ?” Bianca spat at him, nails digging into her thighs.

“I only had one son and that was Jonathan. God gave me three daughters and a son, Bianca Rose, and Elizabeth went against His plan.”

Bianca leans across the table, eyes focusing in on Atticus’s as her words drip with acrimony through gritted teeth. “Fuck. You. Don’t call me by my middle name and don’t you  _ dare _ throw around this shit with me, Atticus. You’re just angry none of us listened to you and went against  _ your _ plan. God is just your thinly veiled excuse to not admitting you’re a bigot.”

If it was not for the public setting, Bianca knows he would have hit her. A nice clean slap with the back of his hand to her cheek on top of getting whipped by his belt. The older she got, she understood that her father’s beatings were half punishment, half controlling pleasure for him.

“And Jonathan? He’s still not sleeping with other men, is he?”

It’s Bianca’s turn to scoff in his face as she sits back into her seat just as the waiter drops off the wine. Her hand flinching in wanting to grab the whole bottle and drink it down. “Oh yeah, choking on mens dicks all the time. Fucking any dude he wants in his nice penthouse on that sweet, sweet lawyer money.” A smile spreads across her face at the utter disgust that comes over Atticus’s face while he pours his own bottle of wine.

“Than perhaps I should indulge myself in not watching just you anymore, but your brother and sister.”

The world grows just a tad bit louder for Bianca, sweat running just a bit colder. She’s almost forgotten what it’s like having Atticus chill her blood. Hair stands up on the back of her neck. The crushing reality that he stalked her, which in turn, means Ethan as well. Atticus seems to find the pleasure in watching her demeanor change as he takes a large sip of wine and pushes the bottle towards her. He dabs the corners of his mouth with his napkin, staining white now starting to be stained red.

“You’re a smart daughter, Bianca, and a smart business woman too. I’m rather impressed you’ve grown your little market so sky high you’ve beaten me out. But you’re also so fucking sloppy,” he gathers his wine glass up in his hand, swirling the liquid around, “so very sloppy. Tell me, how does it feel? Knowing you couldn’t even look out for yourself let alone this boy-toy of yours.”

Bianca grits her teeth, her hands trembling out of pure rage under the table. It makes her feel ill knowing he’s been watching her. “What do you want. You’re doing it for a reason. What the fuck is it.” She can’t hide the venom in her words. She’s not indigent with him for watching her, its from watching Ethan. It takes all her willpower to keep a steady voice when the waiter comes back to ask her what she wants for food. She’s not even hungry for food people  _ should _ eat, she’s hungry for Luther’s torso she still has in her freezer. Still, she forces herself to order some kind of cut of beef before continuing on with Atticus. “Because last I remember, you were in Georgia perching on Sunday mornings and by Monday night you were making drugs in a lab and selling them to hospitals and making fucking millions of the ill.”

He waves her comment off, as if its nothing but a bothersome fly. “So? I have ears, I have eyes. Our people intermingle more than you can believe. It’s what happens when a father holds the market with his children. You may wear the crown, princess, but it does not protect you. I don’t need to be in this state, this even side of the coast to watch  _ you _ .” He tops off his wine and draws another long sip from it as a table nearby them gets up and leaves. Bianca glances down to her phone. It’s already half past nine. 

_ Still no Ethan. Shit. Please just call.  _

Sharply clearing his throat, Bianca snaps her eyes back to him as her father continues. “I came here on business, family business. It was not hard to find you. I’ve been in this city for over a month and did you ever notice? Course not. You’re too wrapped up in Ethan Ramsey to pay attention.” He held his hand up to her, hushing her before she gets the chance to speak. “It happened solely on accident, running into you. The coffee shop, down by your work? Cute place. But you really didn’t want Ethan there with you now did-”

“Shut. Up.” Bianca cuts him off, per usual. Her skin has the feeling that its crawling with ants and her stomach twists into knots. He’s been watching her for this long? “Ethan and I aren’t together. I don’t care about him. I care about why the fuck you watched me for so long. What is it you know?”

Atticus gives her a coy smile. “Everything, my sweetheart. I know everything. It’s not very hard to get to someone when you have people who do everything for you. Tapping into emails, phones… top of the line technology that only the government can buy, and blood money too. I know everything, darlin’,” he chuckles to himself, “especially the party and this morning. And Ethan, oh, I wish I had paid more attention to him. You care so much about him.”

The mention of Ethan’s name makes her heart squeeze and ache. Bianca swallows hard as the waitress drops off food but her hunger for anything is long gone. Stress gnaws on her empty stomach , fear ruins her from the inside. She can’t even stop the words that tumble from her lips. “Don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt Ethan.”

She brings a shaky hand up to clutch her water glass and uses her other free hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. A wave or regret, a rare feeling to her, washes over her as she can’t fathom Atticus laying a single hand on Ethan. She’s going to, and would, kill him before he ever gets the chance. Ethan is that one person who she would do anything for, who gets her to feel things she hasn’t that is not the fear and horror her own father instills in her. 

Ethan makes her feel more human than she’s ever felt before.

“Curious, I thought you said you didn’t care. And you aren’t dating. But I know a whore when I see one and your image this morning walking to your door doesn’t help your case. Oh, what the church would think of you back home.”

Bianca gulps down water as if her life depends on it. She sets the glass down too hard for her liking as she has to press her hands flat into the table cloth to stop the trembles. “You sick sadistic  _ fuck _ . Tell me what you want j-just get it out there! What’s this family business you want to tell me?! What does Ethan have to do with any of this, just leave him out of it!” If the desperation isn’t apparent on her face, it's very apparent in her voice.

Atticus takes a bite of his food. It’s a plain salad with dressing that smells like wine and mint. It looks fucking disgusting to Bianca as he eats it, she can’t bring herself to touch her food. He wipes his mouth off as he reaches into a hidden pocket in his suit and pulls out a sealed envelope. His expression voided of emotion and his stone eyes burning a hole right into her skull. “I need you to deal with a client. You ran my business of disposing the problematic clients into the ground. You’re the one with the marketable services. This client hes… well he’s going to ruin me further, and you eventually if you don’t do this for me. Frankly, I feel entitled that you do this anyway for me regardless of our relationship. I raised you, Bianca, I feel it’s justified to say your business is my business. We’re  _ family _ after all..”

Bianca flickers her eyes between the envelope and Atticus. “Bullshit. There’s a catch, there perpetually is with you. And this," she points between the envelope and him, "this is  _ not _ our family business. This is  _ mine _ . I fucking built it like the Romans built Rome.”

When he smiles, hell freezes. The world sinks into the foreground and all that exists is the space between them and his wicked smile. It’s voided of warmth, yet very charismatic, but shows no sign of being empathetic. 

He slips the envelope across the table to her and settled back in his seat, that smile still on his face. “It’s cinch to me. You don’t do this, I kill  _ him _ , and you know exactly who I mean. I'm not asking, I’m demanding."

“You sick  _ fuck _ ," Bianca's words are like whispers on her lips. Airy and full of wrath. He's hanging murder over her head, murder of the one person who makes her feel so alive. "Why are you doing this?"

Actticus makes a tsking sound with his tongue, shaking his head. “Oh sweetheart, you’re the last person who should be asking me that sort of question.” A forceful hand grabs her by the chin, making her to look directly at him. His skin is soft but burns so hot. His grip after all these years, is still just as strong as she remembers. He leans across the table, their eyes mirrors of each other as he’s inches from her face. “We’re not so different, you and I. And you know it. Say all you want that you built your empire up, that you've done well for yourself all these years."

_ Just hit him. Hit him, throw water in his face just get away. Do what he says and save Ethan. Oh my god why are you allowing him to treat you this way? _

_ _ Actticus digs his fingers just a bit deeper into her skin, the metal of his ring painfully pressing into her. His voice is so abysmal and chilling to her that her eyes begin to sting with tears."But you would have gotten nowhere if it wasn't for me. I  _ made you _ . The Hemgrove family  _ made you _ . Our fucking family legacy made you! Your mother was a fool in thinking she could fix you when there's  _ nothing _ that ever will-

_ Smack! _

It’s a crisp sound of skin on skin contact that makes people look. Her fingertips sting with pain from the astringent smack. Atticus, in too much shock, releasing her. It gives her time to push herself up from the table, towering over the monster at last. She grabs a fistful of his shirt and yanks him in close whilst she leans in. It’s her turn to maybe, just maybe, instill fear within him. Or remotely feel like she is. 

Because monsters like him  _ don’t feel fear _ . 

“Keep mom OUT of your god damn fucking mouth.” Her voice drips with venom and is hauntingly dark. To outsiders, they gaze upon an unhinged looking woman whos lips are pressing into a thin line and has death dancing in her eyes. “Or I will, and I mean it, I will fucking kill you. Now stay the fuck away from me and leave this city. Because if I find out you’re still here, and I  _ will _ find out, you better start praying to someone other than God because He’s not going to hear you.” She jostles him back into his seat, just about tipping the chair back as she gathers her phone and jacket up and for a good petty measure, takes his wine glass and tosses the wine he’d been drinking in his face. Her eyes never leave him, not even for a second. 

Setting the glass down, she uses her free hand to snatch the envelope up from the table and storms off away from him, away from the whispers that begin to stir within the walls, away from spying eyes. Emotions are exploding in her chest and a sickening wave of anxiety rushes over her, but outside she remains so collected. She blatantly ignores the host trying to get her to stay as she marches right out the front door and into the bustling streets of Boston. Putting a quickening amount of distance between her and the establishment, heartbeat matching her cursory pace.

The cold doesn’t phase her, not when her whole body is having an inner melt down at she outwardly can’t show it. She fumbles with her jacket and phone, shoving her device into her pants pocket and throwing on her jacket as she approaches her car. Unlocking it as she slides in with ease to her drivers seat. 

When the door slams shut, the relief takes over and her body goes limp. It's aching from her shot nerves. Her eyes peering out onto the sidewalk as it seems her father didn't make an attempt to come after her. A smart part on his end, a death wish on hers. She  _ should  _ be joyous over standing up to him, but his reach of pure terror stretches into her very core. The envelope still sits perfectly in her lap, waiting to he opened.

_ Right, forgot about you. _

_ _ If she has a death wish after sticking up to Atticus , than whoever he wants dead must be playing, in his eyes, God and can't even allow the idea of mere mortal men or women to play it. 

She supposes she'll never figure out what the exact reason is. He says it's ruining him, it's going to ruin her too. And if her and Atticus have any common ground, it's that they don't take fairly well to being ran out of business. 

Still, she doesn't necessarily murder people without reason.

Shaking, she peels it open and what falls into her hands are photographs of a man, younger than Ethan but older than herself, in a crisp business suit doing various, dare she say, mundane things. The pictures are immaculate, the clearest photos she’s ever seen. Filtering through them, they're often pictures of him by a sporty black car, in some personal office or out to lunch with others laughing while downing a beer. A methodical man for a habitual life. 

Its the last photograph that makes blood boil and is the catalytic tipping point.

Ethan is who she notices right away. His dark hair, the strong jawline, the absolute disdain in his eyes as they glare down this man. It's hot, sexy if she's being fully honest. Ethan is with Harper, who is equally irritated with the man and avoiding direct eye contact. The stranger showing off papers and has a large briefcase that's open, though it's unclear what's inside it. Her nails dig into the flimsy picture and start to crinkle the edges as she turns the photograph over. Written across the back in black pen is handwriting that reminds her of computer code.

_ Declan Nash, VP of Panacea Labs _

_ Hit placed on for illegal organ harvesting of children and company drug testing cover up _

_ Call 617-009-004 for more information  _

_ Fuck. _

She knows that number. She  _ knows _ who that number belongs to. It has to be some sadistic nightmare that she's not able to wake herself from but it all just feels too real. Her mind is on autopilot though the autopilot is failing as her free hand digs around for her phone and pulls it out. It takes a second, following two then three and all the way up to a full minute before she unlocks the device and finds her contacts, not having to scroll to find the number. 

Through the speaker, the other end rings exactly one and a half times before picking up.

"Hemgrove, calling a bit late are we?"

Bianca manages a choked up laugh to escape her as she leaned her head against the car window. "I guess, yeah," she pauses, "I got your photographs."

The dead silence on the other end doesn't phase her. She waits for their response as a long drawn out breath makes the speaker crackle. "So you know."

"Not everything," she bites her inner lip, "can we talk tomorrow? At the coffee shop?" 

"Course. Safer that way. I suspect you have questions."

She rolls her eyes, though nausea begins to eat away at her stomach. "Of course I do. Just meet me there at 6 tomorrow, Lahela, and don't be late." 


End file.
